Beachgoer discovers 130-million-year-old dinosaur footprints
Digital Reporter
Sunday, September 18, 2016, 4:50 PM - Among tourists and fishermen in Broome, Australia, one beachgoer stumbled across a Jurassic surprise.
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Bindi Lee Porth was picking up shells along Cable Beach around sunset when she stepped right into the 130-million-year-old tracks of a 4-metre long, carnivorous dinosaur.
"I went to put my foot down, and the best way that I could describe it is that I felt a very strong energy," Porth told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC.)
"When I'd taken my foot slightly off, I could see a bit of a hole, and I thought, 'This is a bit weird,'" Porth explained. "So I just sort off brushed all the sand away and it's revealed this beautiful, like a bird, foot."
Tourists and locals had gathered to watch the sunset over the Indian Ocean along the Broome coastline when Porth made the discovery.
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Broome's coastline was made famous for million-year-old dinosour footprints that span more than 150 km, from Roebuck Bay to the Dampier Peninsula, the ABC reports.
Porth's discovery was unique, however, because of how exposed the tracks were to Cable Beach's tourist area -- loaded with resorts, stores, and travellers.
"That's why I thought no, they couldn't have been real because there'd be signs or some sort of notification to let people know these prints are here," Porth told the ABC.
Porth's discovery was the first time these specific tracks had been reported since 1974, The Guardian reports.
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According to Dr. Steven Salisbury, paleontologist and senior lecturer with the school of biological sciences at the University of Queensland, the tracks were made in a specific rock that preserved the footprints over the thousands of millennia.
"It seems like the area was part of a vast river plain flowing into a delta so there were lots of species that were conducive to the preservation of dinosaur tracks,” Salisbury told The Guardian.
Salisbury -- who is also the lead on a study of the dinosaur tracks along Broome's coastline -- found the discovery to be quite impressive, the ABC notes.
"This is a very exciting development; having someone beachcombing to come along tracks like this, this is what makes the Broome area and the dinosaur coast so special.
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SOURCE: Australian Broadcasting Corporation | The Guardian | Bindi Lee Porth/Facebook
