Re: dino tracks near Syracuse?

["Rob Schenck" <rs7286@albany.edu>]

tridactyl tracks found in the Nyack area in Rockland county have been found.
They were initially thought to be bird tracks, and were named _Grallator_.
In the New York State Museum in Albany, there is a slab of rock with these
footprints on it.  The stride is 49 to 51 cm and the left foot footprints
are 12cm long and the right foot footprints are 13cm long.  A second
trackway on the slab has footprints that are 14 to 15cm long.  Colbert in
1970 assigned them to _Coelophysis_.  Interestingly, the paper I have here
says that direct fossile evidence takes presedence over indirect evidence,
and thusly the name _Coelophysis_ is retained and _Grallator_ dropped. The
paper also says that these are the only vertebrate fossils in New York from
the Mesozoic era.  The rock the trackways are in is a "purplish-red silty
mudstone and argillaceous sanstone of the Brunswick Formation of the Newark
Group.  I dont think that this group is exposed in and around Syracuse, but
I dont know this for certain.

the paper is titled "The world of _Coelophysis_-A New York Dinosaur of 200
Million years ago, written by Donald W. Fisher, the then State
Paleontologist, and published under Circular 49 of the Geological Survey
from December 1981 by the New York State Museum and Science Service

~R.Schenck

----- Original Message -----
From: <Afmayor@aol.com>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2001 10:09 AM
Subject: dino tracks near Syracuse?


> Are tridactyl dinosaur tracks possible in the area around Brighton, NY
(south
> of Syracuse) or Onondaga, NY?
> (I have a 19th century report of giant bird-prints in stone in that area,
> making a trail that extended about 100 yards.)
> Any info much appreciated!
> Adrienne Mayor
>  <A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/afmayor/myhomepage/writing.html";>NATIVE
AMERICAN FOSSIL LEGENDS</A>
>