In 1988, Guy Plint, an earth scientist, discovered duck-billed dinosaur tracks while studying sedimentary formations in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, dating back 86 million years. Now, almost forty years later, this region in northeast B.C. has become a UNESCO Global Geopark renowned for its rich collection of prehistoric fossils. Plint, along with a local paleontologist, has delved into the history of these tracks, which are the northernmost of their kind in North America.
Recently, Plint and Dr. Charles Helm published new research on these tracks, revealing that the fossilized footprints belong to the Coniacian age of the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 85 to 89 million years old. These findings mark a transition in dinosaur species, with duck-billed dinosaurs replacing ankylosaurs as the predominant herbivores following the introduction of flowering plants as a food source.
The tracks were preserved in Tumbler Ridge, once a prehistoric delta bordering an inland sea, where terrestrial sediments have been conserved over time. The research paper details the exploration of five sites between 2022 and 2025, resulting in the recovery and curation of five individual tracks now housed at the Tumbler Ridge Museum. Eamon Drysdale, the museum’s resident paleontologist and curator, emphasized the significance of these tracks in understanding the evolution of dinosaurs during the Cretaceous period.
These discoveries shed light on the diverse prehistoric life that thrived in the region and provide valuable insights into the evolutionary changes among dinosaur species over time. The ongoing preservation efforts aim to protect these important paleontological findings for future study and understanding of Earth’s ancient history.