| Dinosaur Valley State Park | |
|---|---|
 The Paluxy River with visible dinosaur tracks in Dinosaur Valley State Park | |
  Location of Dinosaur Valley State Park in Texas | |
| Location | Somervell County, Texas |
| Nearest city | Glen Rose, Texas |
| Coordinates | 32°15′11.7″N 97°49′6.91″W / 32.253250°N 97.8185861°W |
| Area | 1,524.72 acres (6.1703 km2) |
| Established | 1972 |
| Visitors | 243,001 (in 2022)[1] |
| Governing body | Texas Parks and Wildlife Department |
| Designated | 1968 |
Dinosaur Valley State Park is a state park near Glen Rose, Texas, United States.[2][3]
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Transcription
[music] Today, dinosaurs live only in imagination. But in some areas their footprints still bare witness to creatures that were once masters of the earth. Some of the best preserved evidence of these creatures can be found about an hour's drive from Dallas at Dinosaur Valley State Park. It is here where sauropods, therapods and duck billed dinosaurs left their giant footprints in the ancient river bed which time has turned to stone. Now this is a footprint! I think? This really means that dinosaurs were really here. Look, footprints right here! Dinosaurs are the greatest thing. They're something. They're big, They're huge. They make a lot of noise. And they're not here any more [laughs]. Billy Paul Baker has lived and worked with these tracks. He sees this whole experience as a never ending adventure. See the footprint, okay? Right there. Yeah, that's a meat eater. He likes to eat that one. And that's his toe, his claw. Big old claws on that dinosaur. You know what they use them claws for I guess? To kill. - Yeah. [running creek] [music] The tracks in this area were first made famous by a Palentologist named Rolland T. Bird. In 1938 he followed a lead to Glen Rose, Texas. Here he found some of the best preserved specimens in the country. Soon he began the monumental job of excavating some of the better tracks. These tracks are now on display in the American Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. Hey, Reagan, I'm going to go over there. They like to come down and explore up and down the river and find the dinosaur foot- prints and play in the river. Hike the trails, ride the bikes up and down the trails, fish the river. We've got a lot of things to do out here. People enjoy this park and I've enjoyed the park. The river gets up and goes down and the tracks are being exposed. New stuff is coming in there all the time. I think the dinosaurs are a wonderful way of being in a time machine, kind of being there. It's kind of like being in a Jurasic park. Oh, here they come!! [laughs] For more information on Texas state parks and historic sites, visit our website or call 1-800-792-1112.
History
Dinosaur Valley State Park, located just northwest of Glen Rose in Somervell County, Texas, is a 1,524.72-acre (617 ha) scenic park set astride the Paluxy River. The land for the park was acquired from private owners under the State Parks Bonds Program during 1968 and opened to the public in 1972.[4] In addition to being a state park, it is also a National Natural Landmark.[5]
Eastward-dipping limestones, sandstones, and mudstones of the Glen Rose Formation were deposited during the early Cretaceous Period approximately 113 million years ago along the shorelines of an ancient sea, and form the geological setting for the park area. Over the last million years or so, these layered formations have been eroded, dissected and sculpted by the Paluxy River which, in many places, has cut down to resistant beds and planed off sizable exposures of rock in the river bottom.[4]
Controversy
Near Dinosaur Valley State Park, in the limestone deposits along the Paluxy River, "twin sets" of tracks were found in the Glen Rose Formation as early as 1908. These footprints were once thought to be evidence that humans and non-avian dinosaurs lived at the same time, but now are identified to be created by dinosaurs.[6] However, young-Earth creationists continue to believe that humans and non-avian dinosaurs lived at the same time, a notion that is contrary to the standard view of the geological time scale. Biologist Massimo Pigliucci has noted that geologists in the 1980s "clearly demonstrated that no human being left those prints," but rather "they were in fact metatarsal dinosaur tracks, together with a few pure and simple fakes."[7]
The family of George Adams, who claimed to have found human footprints in the Glen Rose Formation, later admitted that Adams' and some others' fossil footprints were a hoax.[8] Zana Douglas, the granddaughter of George Adams, explained that during the 1930s' Great Depression her grandfather and other residents of Glen Rose made money by making moonshine and selling "dinosaur fossils".[8] The faux fossils brought $15 to $30 and when the supply ran low, they "just carved more, some with human footprints thrown in."[8]
See also
References
- ^ Christopher Adams. "What is the most visited state park in Texas? Here's the top 10 countdown". KXAN.com. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Dinosaur Valley State Park
- ^ List of Texas State Parks
- ^ a b "Texas Parks and Wildlife: Dinosaur Valley State Park". Archived from the original on June 22, 2005. Retrieved July 2, 2005.
- ^ "National Natural Landmarks - National Natural Landmarks (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
Year designated: 1968
- ^ Morris, John (May 2013). "Paluxy River: The Tale of the Trails". Acts & Facts. 42 (#5): 12–14.
- ^ Massimo Pigliucci, Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature of Science, (Sinauer, 2002, page 246): ISBN 0-87893-659-9
- ^ a b c Kennedy, Bud (August 10, 2008). "Human footprints beside dinosaur tracks? Let's talk". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. p. B02.
External links
- Dinosaur Valley State Park, official website
- A guide to the state park by Glen J. Kuban.
- The Texas Dinosaur/"Man Track" Controversy by Glen J. Kuban from talk.origins
- Film footage of Dinosaur Valley State Park from Texas: The Beginnings, Part I on the Texas Archive of the Moving Image
This page was last edited on 1 June 2024, at 13:18