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seeing the physical sedimentary structures and small burrows in that outcrop told
mewewerelookingattheformerdepositsofriverfloodplains.Theseenvironments
would have been perfect for preserving dinosaur tracks made during a polar spring
or summer. Regardless, I reminded myself to stop entertaining such thoughts and
just be a cold, clear-headed, objective scientist: you know, a dismal pessimist.
Just to dissipate these inward distractions, I decided to look intently at more
of the little burrows in the outcrop. At this point Greg abandoned me, and I didn't
blame him. He walked ahead to join Tom, who was already several hundred meters
east of us. Meanwhile, I took more photographs and measurements of the trace
fossils we had found twenty minutes before. Once that was done, I moseyed along,
scanning both the outcrop and large boulders strewn across the beach. While walk-
ing, I still carefully picked where my feet landed, avoiding those nearly invisible
slippery algal surfaces on the rocks. I had already fallen a few times during more
than a hundred kilometers of walking along the Victoria coast and did not want to
add another bruise, bump, or scrape to my three-week-old collection.
To this day I don't know why, but one large rectangular block of rock among
dozens along the shoreline compelled me to stop and take a moment to have a
second look at it. All I can imagine now is that this sensation stemmed from more
than ten years of tracking animals in the sands and muds of the Georgia barrier is-
lands and other places in the world, a collective experience that led to an intuitive
recognition of something worth noticing on the periphery of my vision.
I looked to my left, then down at the top surface of the boulder. There was a
small three-fold impression, looking vaguely like the middle three fingers of a hu-
man hand. It was close enough to touch, so I did. My own three middle digits mol-
ded to the indentations, confirming what my eyes had seen but not quite believed.
It was a small dinosaur track.
After a quick inhalation, almost trembling, I dared to look at the rest of the
rock, scanning from left to right. More patterns of three came into focus, one after
