This place was first officially documented in 2010. There is evidence of ornithopods, ceratopsids, and theropods spanning many different dinosaur species and species. This shows how busy this area, most likely a pond in a major floodplain, has been over the years.

what is known

The total area of ​​the rock formation is approximately 7,500 square meters, which is slightly larger than a standard football field. The height is like a 20-story building. Tracks with multiple footprints spread across various surface planes.

It’s not a single rock level with footprints. This is a row in time. There were other previously known tracks in Denali, but none of this magnitude.
— says Dustin Stewart, a paleontologist who led the research at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

Although initial observations revealed only a modest trail, experts soon noticed other signs. Tracks are a combination of prints of different species made in soft mud, which are then hardened and covered with sediment. “They are beautiful. You can see the shape of the fingers and the texture of the skin”– says paleontologist Pat Drakenmiller of the University of Alaska.

Dinosaur tracks appear as pits on the slopes of once horizontal rocks / Photo: Patrick Druckenmiller

These various conservation processes took place over thousands of years as tectonic plates slowly pushed against each other and merged, folding and tilting the land to form the Alaska Range. This place didn’t just give us a lot of dinosaur tracks: fossilized plants, pollen, freshwater mollusks and invertebrates were also found in this area. It is the largest known site of its kind in Alaska.

During the Late Cretaceous, this area was full of life, there were ponds and ponds. The climate was warmer, with forests of coniferous and deciduous trees. “It was covered with jungle and full of dinosaurs”, says Drakenmiller. Here lived tyrannosaurs and other predators, flying reptiles and many other animals, which formed an amazing ancient ecosystem.

This footprint probably belongs to a tyrannosaurus / Photo: Dustin Stewart