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Thursday, 27 September 2007 |
Not many people can say they have walked in the footsteps of pre-historic dinosaurs, and literally our 'Century' and 'Climbing 70' riders will be able to do just that. After completing the final climb to the top of Fisher Mesa, cyclists will be able to take their shoes off, grab a pair of flip-flops, or bare-foot it over to the amazing Theropod site to compare foot sizes.
Dinosaur tracks are fascinating remnants of the ancient past.
This beautiful territory of Southeastern Utah is one of the richest in the country for dinosaur tracks. What we have at our disposal in Moab is 320 million years of geologic history, and what I've come to find out is- even rocks can tell a story.
Geologic deposits or rock layers can provide clues to the environment of the time. Some layers of strata are so old life didn't exist. Other layers didn't have the right conditions/sediment to preserve tracks or if it did that layer of rock is hard to find, and in other layers natural disasters happened and made most life forms extinct for millions of years.
What you will find at the top of Fisher Mesa, besides your rapid breathing and a terrific AID-station with volunteers from Allen Memorial Hospital, is petrified tracks exposed in the Entrada Sandstone layer of rock. These very distinct and large footprints were left by a bipedal (2 feet) Theropod. Theropods were meat-eating dinosaurs. Some examples of Theropods include the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Velociraptor, Allosaurus and the Giganotosaurus.
So if you are suffering up the climb, put yourself in the Jurassic time frame and think what it would have been like to have been prey to one of these giant, meat eating dinosaurs and realize.... it could be worse!
- Karen Guzman-Newton
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