Lower Cretaceous dinosaur tracks from the Danxia landscape in Leshan, Southwest China

Abstract

The identification of dinosaur tracks at a courtyard location in a restaurant in Leshan City, Sichuan Province, China became an international news story due to the unusual location of the discovery. Careful analysis of these ‘restaurant tracks’ indicates that they originate in the track-rich, Lower Cretaceous Jiaguan Formation, and are Brontopodus type sauropod tracks typical of the saurischian dominated Sichuan Basin ichnofauna of this epoch. Studies of the weathering of the Leshan Buddha at Mount Lingyun, a world heritage site only 5.5 km from the restaurant, indicate similar lithologies that allow estimation of weathering rates.