Declining water levels due to increasing drought, with the US state of Texas exposed to record heat, revealed the footprints of giant dinosaurs, believed to date back 110 million years.
CNN quoted Paul Baker, 45, who helps clean up and map dinosaur tracks in the state's Dinosaur Valley Park, as saying he had "never seen this many dinosaur footprints" before.
He said: "It is exciting to see something that no one has seen before; this is almost like a treasure. I had thought I had seen all the tracks of dinosaurs in this area, but during the past two years, with the droughts that we have witnessed and the hard work of the volunteers, it was "This is a wonderful sight."
Dinosaur Valley Park, which is located about an hour and a half south of Dallas, Texas, is home to a large number of dinosaur tracks that lived in the area about 113 million years ago. It is a magnet for dinosaur enthusiasts and tourists who usually flock to the now-dry Paluxe River to fish, swim and kayak.
And with lower water levels this summer, more ancient history has been revealed. More than a third of the state is now covered by a severe drought, according to the US Drought Observatory.
Finding a great deal of new fossil history is a pretty bright side to the harsh weather for Glenn Cuban, who has been working and writing about dinosaur tracks in the Palocxi River, in and around Dinosaur Valley State Park, for more than 40 years.
This year, Cuban's work has largely focused on cleaning up two large sites in the park, where he plans to expand mapping of the park's trails to include those previously buried under mud and water.
The Copan team determined that the newly discovered artifacts likely belonged to two species: Acrocanthosaurus, which weighed up to 7 tons, and Sauroposeidon, also known as Paloxisaurus, and weighed about 44 tons.
Source: websites