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Broome's Dinosaur Footprints
| Paul Foulkes' Contribution | The
discovery | Scientists Estimations
Shapes and Sizes | How to find
them | Need more information?
The town of Broome is famous all over the world for its dinosaur footprints. It has been named as one of the best palaeontological sites in the world for viewing dinosaur footprints, and other plant fossils of this period. Broome’s dinosaur footprints are advertised through different tourist promotion pamphlets, television, and even on the internet.
Some girl guides first discovered the footprints at Gantheaume Point
in 1935. These girls then learned about the Aboriginal story of the
emu, which is associated with the footprints at Gantheaume Point. In
the 1950’s a group of men, including Mo Gower and Kim Tapper,
made casts of the dinosaur prints, and sent them to the W.A. Museum.
The first scientific account of the dinosaur prints was by Glauert,
in 1952. In 1967, Colbert and Merrilees published a more detailed account
of the dinosaur prints. They examined about 20 tridactyl footprints,
and attributed them to a single kind of large theropod dinosaur. (COLBERT
& MERRILEES, 1967).
Apart from the footprints, there has been many different fossils found
as well. Including 'worm tracks' (BRUNNSCHWEILER, 1957), microplankton,
miospores, plant macrofossils and bivalves (MIDDLETON, 1990; TOWNER
& GIBSON, 1983; YEATES, 1984).
In February, 1987, Paul Foulkes, a member of the Broome Botanical Society,
was on a field trip with the Naturalists Club. This particular day they
were out counting sea shells, and looking for plant fossils. To his
surprise he found large, round footprints, about 600mm long, forming
track ways in solid sandstone rock.
Following this discovery, Paul started on a long search along the 100km
of Broome’s coastline, and into the long lost land of the dinosaurs.
Since this first discovery in 1987, Paul has found dozens of differing
plant fossils, along with at least 12 - 14 different types of dinosaur
footprints.
In March 1990, Dr. John Long of the W.A. Museum arrived in Broome to
corroborate these new sites. Paul Foulkes, John Martin, and Louise Middleton
took him on a weeks excursion around the coast of Broome, showing him
the different sites. In June 1993, Dr. Tony Thulborn, a dinosaur expert
from Queensland University, came to Broome and authenticated the footprints
on the latest sites.
Scientists estimate these footprints to be about 130 million years old
which places them in the early part of the Cretaceous period. During
that time the dinosaurs probably wandered in the swampy Fitzroy River.
This region provided the perfect environment for the dinosaurs to live
and hunt in. The muddy surface of the river helped to preserve these
huge animals’ footprints for all time.
These footprints vary from the oval-shaped prints of the plant-eating
sauropods, to the print of the three-toed theropods, to those from the
ornithopod dinosaur. Of the few identified footprints were the prints
from the Megalosauropus broomensis. Its prints were as large as fifty-three
cm. Based on this, scientists believe the Megalosauropus to be about
9 meters long and about 5 meters high. Another identified dinosaur is
the Allosaurus. Its footprints were similar to those of the Tyrannosaurus
Rex. To date, there are around nine confirmed types of prints. However,
these prints can only be viewed at very low tides, and unless you know
the exact time of the month when the tide is out far enough, you may
miss the opportunity to see this unique occurrence.
In fact without a proper guide you may not be able to find these footprints,
or you may in some way damage them. Because of this, there have been
made plaster cast replicas of some dinosaur prints. These prints are
located on the cliffs at Gantheaume Point. They are actually casts of
three left feet of the Megalosauropus. The originals are far below,
at the base of the Gantheaume Point cliffs, and in the surrounding coastline.
Theft
Unfortunately, a few years ago, some of these prints were stolen from
the region. The thieves used handtools to carve out one print. They
also broke off large pieces of rock, and whole boulders to steal at
least five other prints. If you have any information on the whereabouts
of these prints, please contact the Broome Police on (08) 9192-1212.
If you would like any more information about the dinosaur footprints,
or would like to go and see them, please call the Broome Tourist Bureau
on (08) 9192 2222.
REFERENCES
BROOME ADVERTISER, Thursday, October 24, 1996 - Front Page Article:
Footprints theft sparks call for tighter scurity .
BRUNNSCHWEILER, R.O. (1957) - The geology of Dampier Peninsula, Western
Australia. Rept. Aust. Bur. Miner. Res. Geol. Geophys., 13: 1-19.
COLBERT, E.H. & MERRILEES, D. (1967) - Cretaceous dinosaur footprints
form Western Australia. J. Roy. Soc. W. Australia, 50:21-25
MIDDLETON, M.F. (1990) - Canning Basin. Mem. Geol. Surv. W. Australia,
3: 425-457
THULBORN, T. & HAMLEY, T. & FOULKES, P. (1994) – Preliminary
Report on Sauropod Dinosaur Tracks in the Broome Sandstone (lower Cretaceous)
of Western Australia.
TOWNER, R.R. & GIBSON, D.L. (1983) - The geology of the onshore
Canning Basin, western Australia. Bull. Aust. Bur. Mineral. Res. Goel.
Geophys., 60: 291-320.
YEATES, A.N.; GIBSON, D.L.; TOWNER, R.R. & CROWE, R.W.A. (1984)
- Regional goelogy of the onshore Canning Basin, W.A.
Copyright © 1998 Rebecca Ferris
Last modified: June 30, 1998