Floods unearth dinosaur tracks in Sandy Creek area

LEANDER, Texas — Just over a month after severe flooding swept through Central Texas, cleanup efforts continue in the Sandy Creek area.

Amid the debris and destruction, residents recently uncovered a remarkable piece of prehistoric history: fossilized dinosaur tracks.

The discovery was made on private property, where vegetation had long concealed the tracks. Experts told KVUE when floodwaters came through the region, they stripped away the overgrowth and exposed the ancient footprints. Paleontologists were then called in to examine the site.

Matthew Brown, a paleontologist at UT Austin, explained that natural disasters often lead to unexpected scientific discoveries. 

“Whenever there’s any kind of cataclysmic event, floods, things that are very destructive to our human experience, they also are uncovering a lot of new fossils,” Brown said.

According to Brown, the tracks likely belonged to an Acrocanthosaurus, a large, meat-eating dinosaur that lived more than 115 million years ago.

“It superficially would have looked kind of like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, even though those two species lived about 40 million years apart,” Brown said. 

During that time period, Brown explained, Central Texas was home to a variety of dinosaur species, including massive plant-eaters like Sauropods.

“To be able to see the footprints, this track in the ground, on the site where these dinosaurs were actually walking, really sort of brings home the reality that these were were living creatures that would have been, you know, if we lived 115 million years ago, would have been sharing the environment with us,” Brown said. 

Researchers now plan to use drones and laser surface scanners to create 3D replicas of the tracks for further study. 

Brown encouraged anyone who encounters a fossil during flood cleanup to take a photo and email it to experts, allowing scientists to investigate without damaging the find. You can contact him at matthewbrown@utexas.edu.