A set of dinosaur footprints uncovered in eastern France and dating from 150 million years ago has been authenticated by scientists as a unique discovery. The well-preserved footprints, between 1.5 and two meters in diameter, were discovered in Plagne in the French Jura by a team from Claude Bernard university in Lyon, eastern France. “It's an exceptional discovery and unique in the world by virtue of the size of the prints, as well as by the length of the trail,” Pierre Hantzpergue, geology professor at Lyon university, told Reuters Tuesday. “The sauropods' trail was unearthed for 150 meters, but we think we can follow it along several hundred meters,” he added. The sauropod, the most well-known type of which is the diplodocus, were dinosaurs around 30 meters in length with long necks and tails and weighing 30 to 40 tons. The discovery was made in April by members of an amateur science society specializing in geology and paleontology. The prints surfaced during soil erosion caused by wood unloading operations. Each footprint resembles “a vast depression of around 1.5 meters diameter, ringed by excess mud.”
