Park officials are absolutely furious in Utah. Here's why.

Tourists are throwing priceless 200 million year old dinosaur tracks into a reservoir at a Utah state park.

Tourists have been unwittingly tossing chunks of 200 million year old dinosaur tracks into a reservoir at Utah’s Red Fleet State Park, as we reported recently. And besides the obvious, there are some important reasons why this is a big problem for park officials, who are sounding the alarm and erecting signage warning visitors not to touch the valuable tracks.

It’s all about the state park’s Dinosaur Trackway, which VisitUtah describes as a “cleverly built trail that crosses sandy washes, ribs of exposed stone, and familiar slickrock.” The rocks there preserve the 200 million year old tracks from the dilophosaurus, a theropod dinosaur that lived about 193 million years ago and was about 23 feet in length and weighed nearly 900 pounds. It was one of the earliest large predatory dinosasurs.

So why are these rocks not in a museum, away from the damaging hands of tourists? The state park wants to preserve this section of land as Mohter Nature intended it. The park points out sections of dinosaur tracks, but not overtly so, allowing visitors to discover it on their own.

“Dinosaur tracks and trackways have an energy about them that eludes description,” writes Andrew Dash GIllman, who works in the Utah Office of Tourism, for VisitUtah. “The soft mud of the desert playa absorbed the impact of living creatures as they went about their lives in a Saharan landscape, now hardened over into colorful sandstone. This is called Nugget Sandstone, which comes on the heels of the Chinle, when mammals took an evolutionary step forward. Later, a variety of different dinosaur species took to the streets and became locked up in the Morrison Formation.”

Unfortunately, the recent surge in vandalism has alarmed park officials, raising the question of whether this incredible archaeological site may need to be protected from humans. It would certainly be a disappointing development to future visitors of this amazing site.

The full statement from Utah State Parks follows below.

Here at Utah State Parks, we have a big problem and we need your help to fix it.

Some visitors to Red Fleet State Park have been ripping up sandstone slabs containing 200-million-year-old dinosaur tracks and throwing them into the water.

While this problem is quite alarming, often times the people who are doing this have no idea they could be destroying millions of years of history, Park Manager Josh Hansen said.

“Some of the tracks are very distinct to the layperson,” Hansen said,”but just as many are not. That is why it is important to not disturb any rocks at the dinosaur trackway.”

People come to Red Fleet from across the country and the world to see wonders like these, Hansen said. By deteriorating the track site, people are taking away the experience from thousands of others. Not only that, but this act also constitutes a crime.

“It is illegal to displace rocks that contain the tracks,” Hansen said. “Disturbing them like this is an act of vandalism.”

This problem has increased within the last six months; with a conservative estimate of at least 10 dinosaur tracks vandalized in that time.

While there are existing signs in the area around the tracks, park staff have also started adding additional signs to help ensure people know to not disturb the site.

Utah State Parks believes education can play a big part in stopping this kind of behavior. To help combat it, we are asking everyone to spread the word. Please, do not throw any rocks in the dinosaur track area at Red Fleet State Park. Help us keep the area preserved and beautiful for visitors both tomorrow and for generations to come.

The following is an excerpt from a Wikipedia article about trace fossils.

A trace fossil, also ichnofossil, is a geological record of biological activity. Trace fossils may consist of impressions made on the substrate by an organism: for example, burrows, borings (bioerosion), urolites (erosion caused by evacuation of liquid wastes), footprints and feeding marks, and root cavities. The term in its broadest sense also includes the remains of other organic material produced by an organism — for example coprolites (fossilized droppings) or chemical markers — or sedimentological structures produced by biological means – for example, stromatolites. Trace fossils contrast with body fossils, which are the fossilized remains of parts of organisms’ bodies, usually altered by later chemical activity or mineralization.

Sedimentary structures, for example those produced by empty shells rolling along the sea floor, are not produced through the behaviour of an organism and not considered trace fossils.

The study of traces – ichnology – divides into paleoichnology, or the study of trace fossils, and neoichnology, the study of modern traces. Ichnological science offers many challenges, as most traces reflect the behaviour — not the biological affinity — of their makers. Accordingly, researchers classify trace fossils into form genera, based on their appearance and on the implied behaviour, or ethology, of their makers.

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