Today's quote: Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.

- Simone de Beauvoir

今日名言：今天起就改變你的人生。不要把賭注壓在未來(lái)，現(xiàn)在就行動(dòng)，刻不容緩。- 西蒙.波娃

Prints From the Past?

-Scientists find the world's largest dinosaur footprint in Australia.

- By Joe Bubar (Scholastic News)

Scientists in Australia recently got a?chance to walk in the footsteps of dinosaurs. In March, they announced that they’d identified thousands of dinosaur tracks along a15-mile stretch of Australia’s northwest coast. One ofthe footprints is the largest dinosaur footprint ever recorded.

The footprint is about 5 feet 9 inches long (around 180cm) —large enough for most people to lie inside it. The print was likely left behind about 130 million years ago by a type of dinosaur called asauropod. These long-necked?herbivores(animals that only eat plants) were the largest known dinosaurs, with the biggest ones measuring about 130 feet long (around 40m).

A BIG DISCOVERY

That giant footprint wasn’t the only amazing discovery in the area. In total, the scientists?identified the footprints of 21 different dinosaur species. That includes the?first evidence of a stegosaur—a type of dinosaur with?spiky plates along its back—in Australia. It’s the most diverse group of dinosaur prints ever found in one place.?“It really is a snapshot of life during the?age of the dinosaurs in this particular area,”says Steve Salisbury. He is a?paleontologist?(a scientist who studies fossils) at the University of Queensland in Australia.

ON THE TRAIL

The dinosaurs originally left theirfootprints in sand. Over time, these prints were filled with other types ofsand and small pebbles. The tracks eventually fossilized, or hardened into rock. To figure out which types of dinosaurs had left them, scientists studied the size of the footprints and the patterns in which they were made.

The scientists worked with a group of?Aborigines (ab-uhr-IHJ-ih-neez), or Australian natives. The Aborigines had?known about the tracks for years, but they didn’t sharetheir secret with the paleontologists until 2008. The scientists and the Aborigines created a digital map of the area and made molds of some of thetracks. These can later be used to make?replicas(exactcopies) of the footprints for museums.

Officials plan to open parts of the area to?the public to give visitors a chance to walk among the dinosaur prints too.“With tracks, you really feel like you’re?seeing where one of these fantastic animals actually was millions of years ago,”says Salisbury.

過(guò)去的印跡 - 科學(xué)家在澳大利亞發(fā)現(xiàn)了最大的恐龍腳印

學(xué)樂(lè)新聞. 喬 布巴

最近，澳大利亞的科學(xué)家們有了在恐龍腳印上一走為快的機(jī)會(huì)。今年3月，他們宣稱(chēng)在澳大利亞西北海岸發(fā)現(xiàn)了大量的恐龍遺跡，并長(zhǎng)達(dá)15英里。其中有一個(gè)腳印超越了記錄，是目前發(fā)現(xiàn)的最大的恐龍腳印。

該腳印大約有5尺9英寸長(zhǎng)（大約180厘米）-這個(gè)尺寸足夠讓大多數(shù)人能平躺在里面。這個(gè)腳印很可能是1.3億年前由一種蜥腳類(lèi)恐龍留下的。這些長(zhǎng)脖子的食草動(dòng)物是已知的最大的恐龍，最大的一些可以長(zhǎng)達(dá)130英尺（大約40米）。

一個(gè)大發(fā)現(xiàn)

在這里發(fā)現(xiàn)的巨型腳印并不是唯一的驚喜?？茖W(xué)家們?cè)谶@里發(fā)現(xiàn)了多達(dá)21種不同類(lèi)型的恐龍腳印，還包括在澳大利亞第一次發(fā)現(xiàn)了劍龍的證據(jù)。也是迄今為止在同一個(gè)地方發(fā)現(xiàn)恐龍腳印種類(lèi)最多的地方。“這里真實(shí)記錄了恐龍時(shí)代的一瞬間。”斯蒂芬.沙利斯波利表示。他是澳大利亞昆士蘭大學(xué)的古生物學(xué)家。

尋蹤

恐龍是把它們的腳印留在了沙子里，時(shí)光流逝，這些腳印就被其它的沙土和小石子填滿(mǎn)了。它們就被石化了或在巖石內(nèi)硬化。要知道什么恐龍留下了這些腳印，科學(xué)家們研究了腳印的大小以及路線(xiàn)。

科學(xué)家們和一些澳大利亞土著人一起合作。澳大利亞土著人發(fā)現(xiàn)這些腳印已經(jīng)有些年了，但直到2008年他們才將這個(gè)秘密告知古生物學(xué)家?？茖W(xué)家們和土著人建立了這塊地方的電子地圖，并為一些腳印建了模。這些已經(jīng)可以做成腳印的仿品在博物館里展示。

官方也計(jì)劃對(duì)外開(kāi)放一部分的區(qū)域，讓游客也有機(jī)會(huì)能在恐龍的腳印里走上一回?！斑@些腳印讓你感覺(jué)真的回到幾百萬(wàn)年以前，看到了那些了不起的恐龍?！鄙忱共锉硎?。