Dinosaur footprints were found in a restaurant in Leshan, Sichuan. (Picture / flip from the cover news)
On July 16, an expert team composed of associate professor Xing Lida, a doctoral supervisor of China University of Geosciences (Beijing), and Peng Guangguang, a research librarian of Zigong Dinosaur Museum, conducted an investigation and research at the dinosaur footprint site of the Gardening Forest Restaurant in Leshan City, Sichuan Province, and determined this. It is a Cretaceous Jiaguan Formation dinosaur site, and there are brontosaurus footprints found on the level, which is only 5 kilometers away from the famous Leshan Giant Buddha. Interestingly, this is the only dinosaur footprint found in a restaurant in the world.
“Cover News” reported that there was a quiet small courtyard dam at the scene. If you didn’t pay attention, you would only find a few inconspicuous puddles on the ground, and one of the lotus flowers was in full bloom. Ms. Zhu Min, the person in charge of the restaurant, arranged for someone to drain the water in the pit, and the footprints of the group appeared immediately.
According to Mr. Ou Hongtao, the discoverer of this group of dinosaur footprints, on July 10, when he was dining in the restaurant, he accidentally saw some peculiar pits in the yard. Mr. Ou often comes into contact with stone because of his work, and he is particularly concerned about books and news about paleontology. After careful observation, he found that this is likely to be a dinosaur footprint. That night, he contacted Associate Professor Xing Lida of China University of Geosciences (Beijing) through Weibo.
At the footprint point, a team of experts composed of Xing Lida and Peng Guangguang carefully studied and measured the footprint point, and carried out drone photography and 3D scanning of the footprint. After research, it is determined that these footprints are the Brontosaurus footprints of the Jiaguan Formation in the early Cretaceous, and more than ten footprints form two tracks.
Associate Professor Xing Lida said that the significance of this discovery lies in the discovery of dinosaur footprint fossils for the first time in the urban area of Leshan. These are two tracks left by two sauropod dinosaurs with a body length of about 8 meters. They were about 100 million years ago. Activities along the river in the arid environment of Gule Mountain, leaving footprints. This set of sediments is also the foundation of the Leshan Giant Buddha in the future.
This discovery adds new information to the paleoenvironment and paleoecology of the early Cretaceous in this area, and also lays a solid foundation for finding more dinosaur records in the Leshan area in the future. The expert team suggested that the restaurant should properly protect the footprints on the spot, and also hope that this dinosaur footprint will become a scene in Leshan.