fossil footprint
Preserved dinosaur step
A fossil footprint is the preserved impression of an ancient organism's foot or paw in what was once soft ground—mud, sand, or volcanic ash—that later hardened into rock.
Unlike body fossils, which preserve remains of the creature itself, fossil footprints are trace fossils, recording behavior: The fossil footprints showed the dinosaur was running.
They reveal gait, speed, size, and sometimes social behavior of creatures long extinct.
- trackwaySequence of preserved footprints
- dinosaur tracksPreserved prehistoric reptile impressions
- locomotionAbility to travel independently
- heel strikeFoot's rear touching down
- sedimentationParticles settling in liquid
paleontology · morphology · strata · early humans · biomechanics · impression · mud flat · prehistoric life · deep time · anatomy · migration patterns · erosion · trace evidence · deposition · mudstone · Mary Leakey · excavation · evolutionary traits
- footprintsshoeprint, impression, indentation
- fossilsdinosaur bones, ammonite, amber, ammonites, brachiopod
fossil footprintfossil bones
Preserved prehistoric skeletal remains
coprolite · mummified remains · skeletal remains · fossilized remains · petrified wood
fossil, footprint, fossils, fossilize, fossilized, fossilization, foot, print, footprints