112 Million Year Mistake With a Backhoe

Dinosaur replica at Moab Giants Dinosaur Museum, Moab, UT (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

6 February 2022

Dinosaurs are big in Utah with at least 20 sites(*) where visitors can see evidence of their presence more than 100 million years ago. One site in the Top 10 of paleontology is the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite, managed by the US Bureau of Land Management, where more than 200 tracks were preserved in an ancient mud flat 112 million years ago. The tracks were made by 10 distinct species, some of them the theropod ancestors of birds.

Dinosaur tracks at Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite, Moab, UT (file photo from US Bureau of Land Management)

This video from BLM shows the site in an upbeat effort to teach people not to damage the dinosaur tracks.

BLM warns visitors not to damage the tracks but they did not think twice about beginning a $250 million dollar project to replace the boardwalk without consulting a paleontologist. At the end of January they made a 112 million year mistake with a backhoe.

A backhoe operator last week reportedly damaged part of one of North America’s largest and most diverse sets of early Cretaceous dinosaur tracks near Moab, Utah. The Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite contains more than 200 tracks left by at least 10 different species about 112 million years ago. Last week, work was underway to replace a boardwalk at the location, which is administered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Paleontologists say the agency provided no notice of the work and had no fossil expert on site to monitor it; BLM’s Moab office has lacked a paleontologist on staff since 2018. In a statement this week, BLM did not explain the apparent damage or accept responsibility, saying only “heavy equipment is on location, but it is absolutely not used in the protected area,” and it “is committed to balancing resource protection and public access” to the site. The damage there was verified in person this week by Utah’s state paleontologist.

Science News At A Glance, 3 Feb 2022: Prized dinosaur tracks damaged

It was easy to find out what was damaged. Every single track is documented in photos and measurements. The news hit the papers and reverberated all the way to the U.S. Senate. Without admitting anything BLM halted the project immediately.

For heaven’s sake, Call Before You Dig!

(*) The photo at top was taken at Moab Giants Dinosaur Museum.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons and BLM; click on the captions to see the originals)

One thought on “112 Million Year Mistake With a Backhoe

  1. Goodness, this is unfortunate. A couple of years ago I volunteered for a week at an active dig site in North Dakota. It was so exciting out there digging in the dirt! I didn’t find anything but I got to wrap up some other fossils for transport to the lab.

    I would love to visit this site some day.

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