Dinosaur tracks Münchehagen

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Step seal of a theropod dinosaur

The dinosaur tracks Münchehagen are a natural monument surrounded by the open-air museum Dinosaurier-Park Münchehagen in a former quarry in the Rehburg mountains near Münchehagen , a district of Rehburg-Loccum in Lower Saxony .

description

Tracking group of sauropod dinosaurs
Dinosaur models and the shelter of the national geotope "Dinosaur tracks" (2008)

The fossil tracks are about 250 footprints of dinosaurs in the Wealden sandstone , which were left in the soft bottom of a river delta around 140 million years ago at the beginning of the Lower Cretaceous Period . The footsteps run in several tracks and come from both herbivorous "elephant-footed" sauropods and three-toed carnivorous theropods . Of the total of 15,000 square meters, 3,500 square meters were covered with a hall to protect them from the weather after attempts to preserve the tracks in the open air failed. "The dinosaur tracks near Münchehagen on the Steinhuder Meer " were declared a national geotope in Germany in 2006 .

The traces were discovered in 1980 when the quarry floor was hosed down as part of a fire brigade exercise and the up to 130 cm large mud-filled depressions were exposed.

The open-air museum “Dinosaurier Park Münchehagen” was built around the natural monument. On a 2.5-kilometer circular path, you follow the history of the earth from the ancient times (Paleozoic) to the modern earth (Cenozoic). Along its course, a total of over 200 up to 45 meters long realistic models of prehistoric animals have been erected in keeping with the geological age. A “museum within a museum” exhibits some obsolete models and shows how knowledge about the appearance of these animals has changed.

See also

literature

  • Issue 37 in the series of reports from the Institute for Geology and Paleontology at the University of Hanover: Münchehagen-Heft, 1998:
    • T. Schwennicke: Traces of life and surface marks on the tracking area in the Münchehagen natural monument
    • K. Monecke, F. Mattern: The rift system in the field of natural monuments.
    • Rudolf Fischer: The dinosaur tracks in the Münchehagen natural monument. ( Online , pdf)

Web links

Commons : Saurierfährten Münchehagen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Annette Broschinski: Dinos on the move - The dinosaur tracks near Münchehagen on the Steinhuder Meer. In: Ernst-Rüdiger Look, Ludger Feldmann (Ed.): Fascination Geology. The important geotopes of Germany , E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-510-65219-3 , pp. 20f.

Coordinates: 52 ° 26 ′ 33 ″  N , 9 ° 12 ′ 2 ″  E