Scientists digitally scan dino footprints for future study

Palaeontologists have digitally scanned thousands of dinosaur footprints in the Spanish Pyrenees that were being eroded by the elements, for future study.

London, May 10 : Palaeontologists have digitally scanned thousands of dinosaur footprints in the Spanish Pyrenees that were being eroded by the elements, for future study.

The three-dimensional images of some 3,000 tracks, fossilised in a quarry at Fumanya, in Catalonia, have been recorded using technology more usually employed by the oil exploration industry.

The technique involved using a laser scanning system called Riegl, to record the dinosaur tracks and print the records digitally in three dimensions and in colour.

According to Phil Manning from the University of Manchester, analysis of the prints has confirmed that one set of tracks was made by a sauropod, the biggest dinosaur to walk the Earth, while another set was made almost certainly by a therapod, a two-legged predator such as Tyrannosaurus rex.

"We can now produce a representation of everything on the rocky outcrops, from a single footfall to a whole set of footprints," the Times quoted Manning as saying.

ANI