Capture Timeless Moments with Robert Rowley’s Dinosaur Footprints
Today, Eastern Utah is a coal mining area with several communities whose principal industry is the extraction of bituminous coal. The coal seams derive from the Blackhawk Formation, a thriving tropical swamp forest 65 million years ago. The discovery of dinosaur footprints in the formation has revealed the many and varied species that roamed the ancient coal swamps and greatly enhanced our knowledge of the world of dinosaurs.
Two significant orders of dinosaurs roamed these coal swamps. The first classification, or order, is called Therapoda (tyrannosaurid types). The second order is called Ornithopoda (duckbilled types).
The most prevalent types of "natural cast" dinosaur footprints in the Blackhawk Formation belong to these two orders. The prints are of several diverse species, including the large Tyrannosaurus Rex and others of its smaller relatives and duckbilled types such as Parasaurolophus, Hadrosaurus, and Corythosaurus.
Footprints can tell us a lot; they can provide clues about their makers' size, shape, weight, proportions, etc., as can their makers' fossilized skulls and skeletons, for instance. We cannot conclude, however, absolutely and solely from the footprint, that any given footprint was made by any particular Utahraptor ostrommaysi, Deinonychus, and Velociraptor are all types of dromaeosaurid dinosaurs’ species of dinosaur.
So, we note that in naming the footprints in this album, we can say that "such-and-such" a print was made by "such-and-such" a dinosaur or by a "such-and-such-like" dinosaur. Or, we may say that any given footprint was "probably" made by any dinosaur. Or, this footprint has been identified as "possibly" that of some particular dinosaur species.
That is precisely the approach we have taken for the narrative accompanying each of the photographs in this album. What is said by identification in each of these captions is not necessarily final in a scientifically definitive and rigorously scholarly sense. However, it is the best identification that can be made based on what is only partial evidence, but it is beautifully preserved.
Having said this, we hazard to identify the footprints in the photographs in this album as belonging to the following dinosaurs, with many varieties and species within each of the orders and suborders listed below:
DUCKBILLED DINOSAURS:
ARMORED DINOSAURS: HORNED DINOSAURS:
LONG-NECKED BROWSING DINOSAURS:
TYRANNOSAURID DINOSAURS:
LARGE CARNIVOROUS
DINOSAURS:
Hadrosaurs, Parasaurolophs, Edmontosaurs, Prosaurolophs, Corythosaurs, and lguanodons.
Stegosaurs, Nodosaurs and Ankylosaurs. Triceratops and Chasmosaurs.
Alamosaurs
Tyrannosaurs and Albertosaurs.
Utahraptor ostrommaysi, Deinonychus and Velociraptor.