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Teaching the World’s Future Leaders Dinosaur tracking across time
New dinosaur tracks were discovered in 2023 by workers at Dewars Farm quarry in Oxford, and date from 166 million years ago, in the Middle Jurassic Period. At that time, Oxfordshire was below a warm tropical sea, with patches of mudflats and shallow marine lagoons.
Approximately 200 dinosaur footprints were uncovered over June 2024 by a team of over a hundred scientists, volunteers and students from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford University and the University of Birmingham. The footprints form five trackways. One of these was probably made by a large carnivorous dinosaur, Megalosaurus, which was the first dinosaur ever named, back in 1824.
Megalosaurus may have reached up to 9 metres in length, weighed more than two tonnes (similar to a white rhino), walked on two legs, and would have been a fearsome predator. Measurements of its tracks can be used to estimate that it was walking around 3 miles per hour (5 km per hour), similar to an average adult human walking speed.
Learn more about the dinosaurs of Oxfordshire and check out the Oxford University Museum of Natural History's exhibition on the pioneers of palaeontology.
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