The Paleontology of Footprints

Rich McCrea crouches and springs into a flying leap, hovering above the raging waters of Quality Creek for a split second before landing on the opposite bank. "This is it," he says, peering underneath a sandstone ledge that juts from the weathered rock face. Hidden in shadow on the shelf's underside is a well-preserved set of three-toed tracks left by ornithopods, duck-billed dinosaurs from the Cretaceous Period. Unlike the shallow tracks that beachcombers leave in sand, the fossilized ornithopod prints are domes that project from the rock in upside-down relief. McCrea pokes his head out and grins. "If I were standing in this exact spot 93 million years ago, I'd be beneath the earth's surface, and I'd be able to hear dinosaurs walking overhead," he says.