RARE DINOSAUR TRACKS DISCOVERED BY INDIANA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY GEOLOGIST

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Rare dinosaur tracks have been discovered in an area of Wyoming that has since been named the Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite, extending over two square miles and containing perhaps as many as a million dinosaur tracks.

The dinosaur tracks are estimated to be 165 million years old, which is already causing scientists around the country to rethink what animals existed in the Middle Jurassic Period, and the dynamics of the ecology that supported them.

Geologist Erik Kvale of the Indiana Geological Survey at Indiana University was on an outing with friends and family near Shell, Wyo., when they stopped for a closer look at some intriguing limestones in a gully recently washed out by a rainstorm.

When one of his relatives asked if dinosaur tracks might be found in the limestone, Kvale replied, "Probably not, but . . . here is one right in front of me."

Announcement of the discovery by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management was delayed until Tuesday (March 17) because the federal government was evaluating how best to preserve the site, which is on public land and easily accessible from a major highway. The site is crossed by the Red Gulch/Alkali National Back Country Byway.

Some of the largest footprints found so far were probably made by a 6-foot-tall therapod, a meat-eating dinosaur that walked on two legs, Kvale said. Previously, this area -- called the Sundance Formation -- was thought to have been entirely underwater during the Middle Jurassic. Instead of dinosaur tracks, one commonly finds fossil shells left from an ancient sea.

But these dinosaur tracks were clearly made at a shoreline, not in deep ocean water, Kvale said. The discovery has the potential to reveal much about the behavior, diversity and ecological environments of dinosaurs from a period of time for which very little is known about North American dinosaurs.

Kvale, a research geologist at the Indiana Geological Survey and an adjunct professor in the IU Department of Geological Sciences, knew that dinosaur remains in the Sundance Formation were a rarity. He grew up in the area and has studied the geologic wonders of Wyoming's Bighorn Basin since childhood. He had driven through the area many times, and for decades others have walked through the area, including the gulch, he said.

Kvale was scouting the area with colleague Allen Archer, a geologist from Kansas State University, and Shell residents Rowena and Cliff Manuel and Fran Paton, when the group stumbled on the tracks. The purpose of the trip was to prepare material for a new one-week summer field class that Kvale is offering through IU's Department of Geological Sciences on the geology of dinosaur-bearing rocks. The Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite is now a major part of the course's curriculum.

Internationally known dinosaur expert James Farlow, a faculty member at the Fort Wayne campus of IU and Purdue universities, and co-editor of a recent book titled The Complete Dinosaur, will participate in the study of these tracks. Kvale and Farlow will be joined by investigators from the Smithsonian Institution, Dartmouth College, the University of Wyoming and Kansas State University.

Kvale can be reached at 812-332-1434 or 812-855-1324 until March 19 and after March 31. Between those dates he may be contacted in Australia at 61-07-3835-3535.

(Hal Kibbey, Office of Communications and Marketing, 812-855-0074 or 812-855-3911, hkibbey@indiana.edu)

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