There is a new bigfoot in town – and we’re not talking a wayward primate. We’re talking a wealth of dino info lately!
“…”These are very large distances,” said Hantzpergue. “We’ve seen tracks of maybe 50 metres in France, around 100 metres in Switzerland, and the world record is in Portugal … with about 150 metres. Now, we still have many hectares to search but we will undoubtedly have more than 150 metres at Plagne.”
The imprints are believed to have been those of sauropod dinosaurs, the gentle herbivorous giants which roamed the region about 150m years ago. They appear to have been well preserved by a thick layer of limestone sediment dating from the late Jurassic period – the geological era named after the Jura mountains which lie just to the north of where the tracks were discovered.
Despite the region’s well-known reputation for such discoveries – in 2004, thousands of footprints were revealed on the Swiss side of the border – this latest, and probably most spectacular, find was left to amateurs from the local town of Oyonnax, near Geneva, to stumble upon….”