This one is too big to move

[RetiredLawyer]

8’ long, 32” wide. Excellent sets of tracks. Need a backhoe to move this one. Late in the day so pics are a bit shaded, sorry. 

[Notidanodon]

Wow! thats truly a museum quality piece

[jpc]

wow!

[DPS Ammonite]

Take care when moving these; use lots of padding. Great pieces for a museum. 
 

Are these sandstone/siltstone fillings of prints: the layer of rock above the impressed prints?

 

 

[RetiredLawyer]

I’ve managed to not damage any of them so far. Using plastic tools for the final uncovering, furniture pad on top when I move them. And yes, these are all the raised filled prints. The actual rock bed must have collapsed since they are jumbled up, some fossil side up, some down. I’m hoping I might find the original layer in place as I move up the wall of the wash. 

[DPS Ammonite]

5 minutes ago, RetiredLawyer said:

I’ve managed to not damage any of them so far. Using plastic tools for the final uncovering, furniture pad on top when I move them. And yes, these are all the raised filled prints. The actual rock bed must have collapsed since they are jumbled up, some fossil side up, some down. I’m hoping I might find the original layer in place as I move up the wall of the wash. 

It is possible that the prints were made in mud which turned to shale. The shale may have not been durable and eroded away. Thankfully some sand and or silt covered the prints and turned into the fossils you see today.
 

I can’t wait to see them. sometime.
 

 

[jcbshark]

Wow that’s pretty awesome 

[Wrangellian]

Spectacular! I hope you manage to get it out in one piece, and soon.

[siteseer]

I've seen similar tracks from an early Permian layer.  I think they said it was the Coconino Sandstone.  They find plates like that, though usually smaller, in at least one of the flagstone quarries and the workers consider the rock with the tracks in it as the "junk" because it's more fragile than the flagstone.

[Fossildude19]

Whoa! Look at the traces of all those critters!  

 

Amazing! 

 

[LabRatKing]

Magnificent. I’d plaster and burlap it before moving it, me.

[PrehistoricWonders]

Incredible preservation on them, great find!!!

[historianmichael]

Incredible find!

[minnbuckeye]

Unbelievable is all I can say about your finds!!!!! Tell you what, I can trade my trilobite tracks for that! LOL 

 

Mike

[RetiredLawyer]

It just amazes me. I never would have guessed where that one little footprint I found a year ago would lead. 

[Mediospirifer]

Amazing slab!!

 

Looking at the pattern of tracks, if it was a modern set I'd guess it was made by a raccoon (or something similar) foraging (as opposed to walking or running). The two different size tracks in close proximity look to me like forefoot and hindfoot impressions, as opposed to two different critters tracks. Of course, I'm not an expert in tracks, so I could certainly be wrong! Maybe monkey tracks?

 

Anyway, very cool find!

 

[RetiredLawyer]

What I’ve learned so far is that it is called chirotherium- means hand beast, because of how much the print looks like a human hand. But the “thumb” is on the outside not the inside. That actually caused one of the first theories to be that it walked crossed legged. Seriously lol. No bones have ever been found but the best guess is it looked kinda like an alligator. In fact if you look up pictures of alligator tracks, the gait looks very similar, including the tail drag line. I think some of my other posts show the tail drag. The smaller print is the front foot (manus) and the larger is the rear (pes). This is from the Triassic, so around 200 million years ago. At least some of the smaller tracks lizard looking are rotodactylus, which is one of the first true dinosaurs. It was about the size of a cat. 

[LabRatKing]

14 minutes ago, RetiredLawyer said:

What I’ve learned so far is that it is called chirotherium- means hand beast, because of how much the print looks like a human hand. But the “thumb” is on the outside not the inside. That actually caused one of the first theories to be that it walked crossed legged. Seriously lol. No bones have ever been found but the best guess is it looked kinda like an alligator. In fact if you look up pictures of alligator tracks, the gait looks very similar, including the tail drag line. I think some of my other posts show the tail drag. The smaller print is the front foot (manus) and the larger is the rear (pes). This is from the Triassic, so around 200 million years ago. At least some of the smaller tracks lizard looking are rotodactylus, which is one of the first true dinosaurs. It was about the size of a cat. 

When I first saw the pictures my gut said "those were some busy salamanders", but tracks are not my thing. Thanks for the info!

[Mediospirifer]

On 10/7/2020 at 11:54 PM, RetiredLawyer said:

What I’ve learned so far is that it is called chirotherium- means hand beast, because of how much the print looks like a human hand. But the “thumb” is on the outside not the inside. That actually caused one of the first theories to be that it walked crossed legged. Seriously lol. No bones have ever been found but the best guess is it looked kinda like an alligator. In fact if you look up pictures of alligator tracks, the gait looks very similar, including the tail drag line. I think some of my other posts show the tail drag. The smaller print is the front foot (manus) and the larger is the rear (pes). This is from the Triassic, so around 200 million years ago. At least some of the smaller tracks lizard looking are rotodactylus, which is one of the first true dinosaurs. It was about the size of a cat. 

 

Interesting! I haven't heard of this critter before. 

 

Looking at the rock again with this in mind, I see that I was fooled by the thumb position. The tracks do look like walking traces (at least two trails at upper right in the first image), after all. I was thinking it looked like the critter was putting its feet from side to side, like a squirrel in a sunflower seed spill. 

 

Very interesting!

 

[RetiredLawyer]

I’ve learned a lot from the folks here on Fossil Forum. It’s a great resource. When I found the first footprints it was just one front and one rear. I figured it was a big one chasing a little one.