Constructing and testing hypotheses of dinosaur foot motions from fossil tracks using digitization and simulation

Falkingham, Peter L ORCID: 0000-0003-1856-8377, Turner, Morgan L and Gatesy, Stephen M (2020) Constructing and testing hypotheses of dinosaur foot motions from fossil tracks using digitization and simulation. Palaeontology, 63 (6). pp. 865-880.

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/pala.12502

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Whilst bones present a static view of extinct animals, fossil footprints are a direct record of the activity and motion of the track maker. Deep footprints are a particularly good record of foot motion. Such footprints rarely look like the feet that made them; the sediment being heavily disturbed by the foot motion. Because of this, such tracks are often overlooked or dismissed in preference for more foot‐like impressions. However, the deeper the foot penetrates the substrate, the more motion is captured in the sediment volume. We have used deep, penetrative, Jurassic dinosaur tracks which have been naturally split into layers, to reconstruct foot motions of animals living over 200 million years ago. We consider these reconstructions to be hypotheses of motion. To test these hypotheses, we use the Discrete Element Method, in which individual particles of substrate are simulated in response to a penetrating foot model. Simulations that produce virtual tracks morphologically similar to the fossils lend support to the motion being plausible, while simulations that result in very different final tracks serve to reject the hypothesis of motion and help generate a new hypothesis.</jats:p>

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	footprint, ichnology, simulation, dinosaur, locomotion, biomechanics
Divisions:	Faculty of Health and Life Sciences Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Life Courses and Medical Sciences
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	24 Jun 2021 08:30
Last Modified:	04 Sep 2023 19:14
DOI:	10.1111/pala.12502
Open Access URL:	http://10.0.4.87/pala.12502
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3127533