Sauropod Tracks

Remarks

• Here's a sauropod track from the famous Dinosaur Valley State Park, from the top of the Lower Glen Rose Formation, just west of Glen Rose, Somervell County, TX.  Since we didn't include a frame of reference, the slab containing this track (and also theropod tracks) is shown on the right.  These are on display next to the park entrance.

• Several authors have suggested that Pleurocoelus may have been the dino that squished these impressions into the ancient Glen Rose mud flat.

• However, Pleurocoelus from outside of Texas is much older (Valanginian–Barremian), so the tracks probably represent some other sauropod.

General Info

Stratigraphic Occurrence

• Upper Trinity Group, top of the Lower Glen Rose Formation of North and Central Texas

Age

• According to Langston (1983), the tracks at Dinosaur Valley occur ~6 feet below the Caryocorbula martinae (Whitney) bivalve zone that separates the Glen Rose Limestone into the lower and upper members. The tracks also appear to be within the Douvilleiceras mammilatum Schlotheim ammonite zone of Young, placing the tracks in the middle Lower Albian Stage (~110 mya).

Geographic Occurrence (not an all-inclusive list)

• North–Central and South–Central Texas

Remarks

For photographs and more information on the Glen Rose Formation trackways:

• Farlow, J. O. 1981. Estimates of Dinosaur Speeds from a New Trackway Site in Texas. Nature (London) 294, 747–748.

• Farlow, J. O. 1993. The Dinosaurs of Dinosaur Valley State Park, Somervell County, TX. Austin: Texas Parks and Wildlife Press.

• Langston, W., Jr. 1974. Nonmammalian Comanchean Tetrapods. Geoscience and Man 8, 77–102.

• Langston, W., Jr. 1983. "Lower Cretaceous Dinosaur Tracks Near Glen Rose, Texas". In: Perkins, B. F.; Langston, W., Jr., eds. Lower Cretaceous Shallow Marine Environments in the Glen Rose Formation: Dinosaur Tracks and Plants. American Association of Stratigraphic Palynologists Field Trip Guide, 39–61.

• Lockley, M. 1991. Tracking Dinosaurs. New York: Cambridge University Press.

• Shuler, E. W. 1917. Dinosaur Tracks in the Glen Rose Limestone Near Glen Rose, Texas. American Journal of Science 44, 294–298.

• Spearing, D. 1991. Roadside Geology of Texas. Missoula: Mountain Press, 245–251.

• Weishampel, D. B. 1990. "Dinosaurian Distribution". In: Weishampel, D. B.; Dodson, P.; Osmólska, H., eds. The Dinosauria. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 97–98.

• Young, K. 1974. Lower Albian and Aptian (Cretaceous) Ammonites of Texas. Geoscience and Man 8, 175–228.