Footprint?

[Flygles]

I found this rock with an interesting indentation around 25 years ago on the side of a steep hill in New Jersey. 
 

Forum doesn’t allow me to post multiple images, but one below has my hand in for scale. It appears to be three toed, if a footprint at all. Thank you for your time and attention!

[Scylla]

I see the three toed looking imprint, but the rock looks like conglomerate so I don't think it is a footprint. Sorry

[Fossildude19]

Welcome to the Forum.  

 

I have to agree with Scylla,  I think this is an erosion feature. 

[Rockwood]

Agreed. The key concept being that with the way this type of rock forms it would be hard to imagine this being a surface that would be covered in such a way as to preserve a track and facilitate it's exposure.

Mud flats that are periodically flooded are the most common situation. Plate shaped minerals that settle out of still water being what form bedding planes that expose the tracks.

[MarcoSr]

11 hours ago, Scylla said:

I see the three toed looking imprint, but the rock looks like conglomerate so I don't think it is a footprint. Sorry

 

5 hours ago, Rockwood said:

Agreed. The key concept being that with the way this type of rock forms it would be hard to imagine this being a surface that would be covered in such a way as to preserve a track and facilitate it's exposure.

Mud flats that are periodically flooded are the most common situation. Plate shaped minerals that settle out of still water being what form bedding planes that expose the tracks.

 

First let me say that I don't think that the specimen above contains a footprint.  However, you can't rule it out because you see a conglomerate.  We find a good number of Pleistocene footprints in bog iron in Virginia, some of which is a conglomerate with lots of visible pebbles in it, although these are all fairly flat bog iron pieces with a layered structure.  The bog iron can be many different colors from black to dark brown to tan to yellow to orange to red so you can't use color to identify the bog iron.  Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of most of the tracks which I donated, including those in the bog iron conglomerate, but I do have two pictures of Pleistocene petrified wood in the bog iron conglomerate (see below).  The tracks are much easier to see in the nice, flat, smooth, non conglomerate bog iron (see the picture of the juvenile coyote track below) .

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marco Sr.