This newspaper (Reporter Zhang Jie, Dai Min, Correspondent Lin Siqian Text/Photo) On the 16th, the reporter learned from the Shanghang County Natural Resources Bureau that new progress has been made in the protection of Shanghang dinosaur footprint fossils, and rare dinosaur footprint fossils preserved by positive and negative templates (plate) have been discovered.
The new discovery site is located on the east side of the Late Cretaceous Dinosaur Footprint Group in Longxiang Village, Lincheng Town, Shanghang County, and is adjacent to it. The reporter saw at the scene that due to the collapse of the rock mass, a large number of new fossil specimens were exposed on the spot. Among them, there were a pair of dinosaur footprint fossils preserved on the positive and negative templates (pictured on the right). The concave and convex footprints on both sides corresponded one by one, just like a set of open molds.
According to the National Paleontological Fossil Expert Committee , and Researcher Wang Xiaolin, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropies, who were inspected on the site, the area of the fossil specimen exposed on this positive and negative template pair is nearly 15 square meters, and it preserves a variety of dinosaur footprints such as sauropods and theors, including the trails left by dinosaurs when walking, and some clear symmetrical wave mark structures representing the lake sedimentary environment. Such a large area of positive and negative models has been preserved at the same time as the dinosaur footprint fossils have not been discovered in other places at home and even internationally.
Wang Xiaolin introduced that most of the dinosaur footprint fossils discovered at home and abroad belong to the Jurassic and the Early Cretaceous. The dinosaur footprints discovered in Shanghang belong to the Late Cretaceous, representing the activity remains of the last stage before the dinosaur extinction and have important scientific value. Most of the dinosaur footprint fossils discovered before have only one concave surface or one convex surface, and it is very rare that the concave surfaces appear at the same time. The newly discovered dinosaur footprint fossils preserved in the late Cretaceous positive and negative model in Shanghang fill this gap.
According to preliminary statistics from Wang Baopeng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Natural History Museum, who was also inspected on the spot, this has more than 30 footprints of six dinosaurs concentrated on the fossils. The number and clarity of preservation are also rare, and it has special significance for studying the living habits and living environment of dinosaurs in the Late Cretaceous period.
Shanghang Dinosaur Fossil was first discovered in November 2020. It is one of the highest Late Cretaceous dinosaur footprint groups discovered in my country with the highest Late Cretaceous dinosaur footprint groups, and it is also the first discovery of dinosaur-related fossils in our province. At present, multiple dinosaur footprint types have been cleaned and found, and at least 4 tiers have been found, proving that dinosaurs have a long life history in this area.
