The University of Colorado Denver Fossil Tracks Collection includes thousands of fossil tracks and track replicas from dinosaurs, crocodilians, turtles, birds, hominids and other ancient animals from 21 countries on five continents. Fossil footprints are fundamentally important for interpreting past ecosystems: they shed light on animal behavior, patterns of movement, posture, and ancient habitats. The National Science Foundation award will be used to transfer this exceptional collection to an accredited, permanent home at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History (Boulder). It will also fund curatorial improvements to the collection, enhancing the physical care of specimens, upgrading associated data, and providing on-line access to specimen information.
This project will benefit a broad spectrum of people. Development of an educational website on fossil footprints will teach students, educators, and the lay public about the informative value of these fossils, and the scientific analysis and conservation of field sites. Professional paleontologists will be able to utilize the on-line catalog of tracks, as well as an interactive map showing the global distribution of fossil track sites. In addition, K-12 curricular activities on dinosaur tracks will be created to teach children about how science works, through web-based activities and public education collaborations with nearby Dinosaur Ridge National Natural Landmark.
This National Science Foundation funded project has helped protect an important collection of fossil footprints that has been amassed over some 30 years of research at the University of Colorado Denver (UCD). This collection is exceptional in its temporal and geographic breadth. Fossil tracks and trails provide physical evidence of the movements of animals long ago. Such trace fossils have become increasingly important in paleobiological research, and shed light on the locomotor patterns, posture, habitat associations, foot morphology, and gregarious behavior of extinct animals. Although many museums include some fossil tracks in their collections, substantive collections of these fossils are uncommon and are typically regional in scope. The retirement of the director of the fossil track research program at UCD necessitated transfer of the collection to an institution that could provide for the continued long-term care of the collection. The NSF grant paid for the relocation of the collection to the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History at UCD’s sister institution, the University of Colorado Boulder. This was a formidable task because the collection includes approximately 3,000 specimens, and some of the specimens are very large and weigh hundreds of pounds! The original or replica fossil footprints and trackways in the collection come from 24 countries and five continents and represent rocks that range from 400 million years old to the present. Dinosaur tracks (including bird tracks) make up over half of the collection. Crocodylomorphs and pterosaurs are also well-represented, and tracks from arthropods, turtles, rodents, hominins, and other mammals round out the collection. The collection also includes about 1,650 full size acetate footprint and trackway tracings. Intellectual merit of the activity The translocation of the University of Colorado fossil tracks collection has ensured that it will continue to be protected and available for scientific research. In addition to moving the collection, the grant funded critical curatorial work on the collection. The specimens have been photographed, inventoried, and stored in archival materials. Information about specimens (e.g., geological setting, age, and collection information) has been checked and augmented when necessary. These improvements enhance the utility of the collection for research on fossil tracks. Perhaps one of the more important outcomes of this project was the creation of a customized, searchable, online database. This allows scientists and the public to search the catalog of the collection by different parameters such as age, locality or possible track-makers. Internet access to the catalog of fossil track specimens provides remote access to information about this important collection from all over the world. Broader impacts of the activity Work on the project has also benefitted the larger public at several different levels. The project team created an online educational exhibit on fossil tracks that is hosted by the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) website. The UCMP internet pages are comprised of a complex of internet resources that offer one of the most widely used sites on the history of life on Earth; these internet pages receive around 20 million hits per year. The "Fossil footprints through geologic time" online exhibit provides basic information about the preservation of fossil tracks, how they are studied, what they can tell us, and where they have been found. It shows a variety of fossil tracks from different animals, different periods in Earth history, and different localities. This website is accessible to internet users all over the world. Project team members also developed curricular activities on fossil tracks for middle and high school students. These exercises will be checked by K-12 educators and will eventually be available to other teachers on the UCMP web pages. At the local level, some 31 students and volunteers have been introduced to different aspects of collection management, specimen curation, database structure, and fossil track studies. In addition, project team members hosted visitors to the Denver Tracks Museum during the first two years of curatorial work on this project. The Denver Tracks Museum closed in 2012 after the specimens were transferred to Boulder, but work is now underway to build a temporary exhibition on fossil tracks that will open at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History in the fall of 2014. The exhibit will run through early 2016. After it closes, some of the components of the exhibit will be incorporated into the permanent Fossil Hall in the Museum.
