Secret Dinosaur Footprints Found in Western Australia
In Western Australia, around Broome, there are dinosaur footprints running along the 200-kilometre west coast of Dampeir Peninsula.
These dinosaur footprints have not been photographed and made public before, said palaeontologist Steve Salisbury.
"At first it all does look like rock pools and rock platforms, and not much else. But most of the undulations and things that you see on the rock platforms around here are caused by dinosaurs," Mr Salisbury told ABC.
Mr Salisbury said that the footprints he found with his research group are unique to Broome.
"So many of the tracks that are here, there's no other place in Australia where they occur. It's easily the most diverse and abundant set of track sites in Australia, and globally there are few other places that have as many types of dinosaur tracks as Broome has."
The trackways were footprints of four-legged, plant-eating dinosaurs like the brachiosaurus or diplodocus.
"So everything from animals about 10 metres long, to things that were probably some of the biggest dinosaurs to ever walk the planet, more than 30 metres, with footprints that are upward of one and one-and-a-half metres long. What's really interesting are the four legged, plant-eating dinosaurs, so things like anchisaurus and stegosaurs. We've really got no other substantial record of those types of dinosaurs, apart from stegosaurus, from any other part of Australia, only in Broome do we see evidence of it, so it's pretty special what's here," Mr Salisbury said.
The Secret
The researchers believe that it was in 1930 when non-indigenous people saw the footprints.
While camping at the olden lighthouse keeper's house at Gantheaume Point, some members of the Girl Guides group noticed three-toed prints which belonged to a theropod dinosaur.
Later on, seeing the footprints became part of the itinerary.
However, in an appalling incident, footprints around Broome were taken out of the stones where they were formed and later stolen.
Since then, these footprints were held in secrecy from the public.
Mr Salisbury thinks that it is about time to expose these footprints for public viewing and have Broome be declared as one of world's best place to see remains of the historical giants.
"All these tracks and the rock they're in are about 130 million years old. Back then this was part of a big river plain, probably a delta system flowing from the north, probably to the south, with dinosaurs walking all over it. Some of them look like they're on a mission; they're definitely heading somewhere. Other ones look like they're lost, and they're wandering around in circles ... We've got a record of what they were doing and it's a hundred and thirty million years old, so it's pretty special," Mr Salisbury said.
Mr Salisbury said that the public should be educated about the stories of sauropods, ornithopods and theropods.
"If you could go back in time and look at the Broome area, you would have seen all these different types of dinosaurs wandering around; it would have been really special. It's your own Cretaceous Park, on your doorstep."