I actually first heard about these back in 2008 when there were
was a two-line blurb about it in the weekly “Community Impact,” so I went and
checked it out then. I parked at the
side of little-used road near a bridge, walked down to the riverbed, and went
upriver for about a half-mile or so until I found the tracks. I took a single picture there, but I met
someone who mentioned there was another track (less-defined) visible under the
bridge because the water level was low.
I took a picture of that, too.
And other than a brief comment about it during a presentation put on by
Austin Planetarium (before it was Texas Museum of Science and Technology), I
didn’t think much about it.
Since I knew I’d be leaving the area sooner or later, I decided to
try to find these again. Since there had
been a lot of road construction on 183 north of Parmer (when it becomes “Ronald
Reagan Blvd”), I wonder if the tracks even still existed, or had been destroyed
by demolition or building of new homes.
The bridge was mostly the same, so I could find the area, even though it
had greatly changed in a decade. A had
to check with a local business to find out where I should park, as many places
were marked as a tow-away zone.
Even though there was road construction, I was still able to pick
my way down to the riverbed, and headed towards were the tracks were. Once again as the water levels were low, I
shouldn’t have any difficulty finding them (provided they were still
there). I encountered some people
walking nearby, who’d come to see the tracks too.
I took a picture of my foot next to one of the tracks for a sense
of size. There was about a half-dozen
prints, spaced out every two of my steps, which ended at a sedimentary rock
wall. I’m sure if one was able to peel
those layers back we would’ve found more.
So the prints were about 18 inches long, and sunk about an inch in the
rock. Other than the pace, and it was a
three-toed bipedal reptile, that’s really all could be learned from it. No clue of the species. I’m sure the local geologists had already
checked the surrounding rocks to get a general idea of the time of when these
were made. Dinosaurs existed for about
150 million years, which ended 65 million years ago, so these had been here for
a bit. The erosion of the river exposed
these probably a couple hundred years ago, and they’ll probably be worn away in
another century (if that long).
I did look around the bridge area for the other tracks also. It was an active construction site, and
wasn’t able to locate them. They may
have been behind an area marked as a work zone.
Along the riverbed, I did have to note all the houses perched up on the
top of the cliff, and the large clunks of rock which had tumbled down during
the building process. How long before
that erodes, and these dwelling tumble into the ravine?
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