Tyrannosaur in rock slab
The footprint was found by UBC student Carina Helm and her father while they were out doing maintenance work on a trail that runs about 10 km from the town of Tumbler Ridge. Returning from their good deed, Carina recalled an area she'd seen before that had some interesting rock formations.
"My dad and I were returning in the evening from repairing boardwalks on one of the hiking trails when I told him I knew of some big exposed rock slabs," Ms. Helm told North East News. "We worked out that these were maybe from an age that could feature dinosaur tracks, so we decided to make a detour to have a look.
"The very first rock I went to, right beside the road, had this huge track-shape on it with three toes," she continued. "I thought, 'Surely that is too big to be a footprint?' but I showed it to my dad and next thing he was on his cell-phone to Rich McCrea telling him about the find."
Large predatory dinosaur
The following day McCrea, the Curator of Palaeontology at the Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre in Tumbler Ridge, and another paleontologist, Lisa G. Buckley, traveled to the scene of the rock slabs and confirmed Helm had indeed found a Tyrannosaur footprint, one that measures 59 centimetres (about 2 feet).
Tumbler Ridge is a community of about 2,700 in northeastern B.C. that was incorporated in 1981 and is primarily a coal mining town. Over the years Tyrannosaur footprints and bones and other dinosaur fossils have been discovered and the research center was opened in 2003.
Being just 10 km. from the town this latest Tyrannosaur footprint, or track, will be more accessible to those hiking in the area and will be seen by more than any of the others in the region. Other Tyrannosaur footprints have been found in Alberta, Mongolia and New Mexico.
Tyrannosaurs, massive predatory dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus Rex, lived from 150 million to 65 million years ago.