A paleontologist, Guy Plint, found duck-billed dinosaur tracks in 1988 while studying sedimentary formations in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., dating back 86 million years. The region in northeast B.C. is now a UNESCO Global Geopark known for its abundance of ancient fossils. Plint collaborated with local paleontologist Dr. Charles Helm to investigate the tracks, which are the northernmost discovered in North America for their age group.
Their research, recently published in February, revealed that the fossilized footprints belong to the Coniacian age from the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 85 to 89 million years old. These tracks indicate a significant shift in dinosaur species following the emergence of flowering plants as a primary food source. Ankylosaurs, armored dinosaurs, previously dominated the herbivore population, but duck-billed dinosaurs had become the prevalent plant-eaters during the Coniacian era.
Tumbler Ridge, once a prehistoric delta adjacent to an inland sea, provided the geological context for these discoveries. Plint highlighted that the area has preserved terrestrial sediments, making it unique in Canada for housing the only known Coniacian age dinosaur tracks. The research involved exploring five sites between 2022 and 2025, resulting in the curation of five individual tracks at the Tumbler Ridge Museum.
Eamon Drysdale, the museum’s resident paleontologist, emphasized the importance of these findings in understanding the evolution of dinosaur species during the transition period between the early and late Cretaceous periods. He noted the scarcity of body fossils from this era and stressed the significance of track discoveries in enhancing our knowledge of dinosaur evolution.
The museum has taken measures to safeguard the tracks uncovered by Plint and Helm to prevent damage. The ongoing research sheds light on the evolutionary dynamics of dinosaurs and their ecological adaptations over millions of years.