Monumento Natural das Pegadas de Dinossáurio de Ourém - Torres Novas, Portugal - Wikipedia Entries on Waymarking.com

"On the site now occupied by the footprints of a dinosaur worked quarry, the Galinha quarry's; on July 4, 1994, João Carvalho, Torrejana Speleological Society, and Archaeology, discovered footprints that would transform the existing quarry on the monument. The National Museum of Natural History created a working group that performs two reports serve to demonstrate to the officers and scientific, the paleontological importance of the finding and subsequent creation of the monument."

"The monument is open to the public March 1, 1997 and the same year opened the first circuit is autonomous inspection and interpretation of the deposit. In 2002 he created the Jurassic Garden which aims to show visitors the current plant botanical characteristic groups in the Mesozoic, the "Age of Dinosaurs". The park also has an area of animation, an animation Environmental Center, a picnic area, a large panel illustrates the evolution of life on Earth over geologic time and various bulletin boards over the 1000 meters of its length."

"The 20 existing trails are the largest and oldest sauropod tracks far as is known (175 million years) but also the best preserved, being composed of more than 1000 tracks."

"There are 175 million years in the Middle Jurassic, where today stands the Serra de Aire and there was a shallow coastal area with parts flooded by tides. At that time, Europe was still connected to North America, forming the supercontinent known as Pangea and between Iberia and the current Canada, there was a shallow sea and the clear, warm waters that promoted the precipitation of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) limestone and propitiated the formation of coral reefs. The weather was hot and humid and therefore, the vegetation was abundant."

"At the bottom of these lagoons marine-deposited mud is limestone, which were easily marked the footprints of animals that passed by, and among them, the dinosaurs were sauropods, herbivorous animals, and large, reaching up to 30 meters long and 70 tons in weight, to whom, this landscape of lush forest, was the perfect home, with this species, most of the footprints found."

"After drying the mud-carbonate plastic where the footprints had been made, the prints were covered by new carbonate sediments which later would turn into the limestone, which allowed mining to uncover the tracks of dinosaurs. The study of these footprints is central to the knowledge of the habits and way of life of dinosaurs, how they moved, and how fast did it alone or in groups or herds."

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