Stepping Out of the Past....

On the banks of the Connecticut River in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in a little known spot, there is exposed the bed of an ancient river, swamp, or inland lake. Preserved in the mud, now turned to rock and tilted toward the river, are ripple marks, bits of plants and tracks... dinosaur tracks.


I never knew about this spot when I was growing up. I always loved dinosaurs. Little did I know that evidence they had walked the earth was just 15 miles away from my home. It wasn't until I was in college, on a field trip, that I first visited the site.

The prints are thought to have been made by a small herd of Eubrontes, 15 foot high, 20 foot long, bipedal carnivores, likely to have been ancestors of the T-rex. There are some 130 prints, which crisscross the outcrop, most walking away from today's river. They left their prints in the mud some 190 million years ago.

We were there after some group had visited to study the three-toed tracks. Most were outlined in chalk, and marked with letters and numbers, to identify each individual. You could easily walk in the steps of a dinosaur, their stride being 4 to 5 feet long, with most individuals tracks numbering 8 to 10 steps across the sloping outcrop. Most prints were about 12-14 inches long and 8 inches wide, but there were a few smaller ones. Were those the tracks of younger individuals? I suppose that is a questions for the experts to answer.

We stayed about 30 minutes. Below us, toward the river, were railroad tracks and more rocks. The sign at the parking area asked people not to cross the tracks. I was tempted to go look, but we didn't go down to the water. Several families were swimming there. One group of teenagers, climbed the hill to look at tracks. To them, there was nothing impressive. The tracks weren't at all what they were expecting. Perhaps they weren't as clear or distinct as they thought they should be. Perhaps they expected models of the creatures that made them to be standing nearby. I guess it's all a matter of perspective. Each to their own.

I thought the tracks were neat. So much so that I wanted to share them. I specifically took Edward down Route 5 in search of them, wanting to show them to him as much as I wanted to see them again for myself, 27-odd years after my first visit. They hold as much intrigue for me now as they did then. It's what has always fascinated me about geology, and is a large part of why I choose that as my career. One simple question: What was here before me? In this spot, beside a highway, down a shallow slope and hidden from view of the road lies an answer to part of that question. Dinosaurs were here, stepping out of the past, to walk across the present and say "I was here before you."



For more information: Dinosaur Footprints, Holyoke, MA