14 DAY TRIAL // Dinosaurs have always been a fascinating subject, for both the scientific community and the general public, and that's why any discovery regarding the former inhabitants of Earth is a very exciting event.
The same can be said about the latest dinosaur-related find. Thus, a recently discovered fossilized footprint shows that dinosaurs once lived in what is now Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve, scientists said, according to the Reuters Agency.
The footprint, estimated to be 70 million years old, was found on June 27 near a campground 35 miles west of the park entrance by a University of Alaska Fairbanks student attending a geology and geophysics field camp in the park. It was the first evidence of dinosaurs ever found in Denali, one of Alaska's top tourist destinations.
The three-toed track, reported to be 6 inches (15 cm) wide and 9 inches (23 cm) long, seems to have been made by left foot of a theropod, a class of two-legged predators, said Anthony Fiorillo, curator of the Dallas Museum of Natural History and an expert on Alaska dinosaurs, and based on these dimensions he estimates that the meat-eater was 9 to 13 feet long.
This is not the first discovery of such tracks in Alaska, but it's for the first time that they are found so far inland, added the scientist. "It's not necessarily the track itself that's significant to us. It's where it is that has got us all excited. Because it's an opportunity in Denali to sample a completely different ecosystem to the one that we're working on along the Colville River," Fiorillo said.
In any case, this find has opened up a whole new perspective on Alaska dinosaurs, and that is why the National Park Service will preserve the site and perhaps even carry out more dinosaur searches in the Denali area.