New Excavation Method and its Applications for Fossil Footprints

This study is concerned with new excavation methods and techniques for fossil tracks/trackways and its application. Unlike the body fossils such as dinosaur skeletons and isolated bones, the Mesozoic vertebrate tracks and trackways including dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and birds are usually discovered in long-distance trackways. The trackways are also found in a large area of the bedding plane and preserved as two-dimensional and flat characteristic. New excavation methods for fossil footprints reflecting these characteristics have been designed to excavate fossil footprints preserved on wide bedding plane and applied to five excavation fossil tracksites. As a result of its application, the tracks and trackways of dinosaur, pterosaur, and bird were successfully excavated. And based on various excavation cases, the step-by-step process and details of the fossil footprints excavation was proposed.