Picket Wire

by Jon Burch Photography

Title

Picket Wire

Artist

Jon Burch Photography

Medium

Photograph - Digital Capture/faa Watermark Will Not Be On Your Finished Photograph.

Description

Picket Wire Canyon on the Purgatoire River, is a primitive canyon that is home to the largest known set of dinosaur tracks in North America. Native American rock art, structures left by early Hispanic settlements and a historic ranch beckon hikers, photographers and explorers. A variety of wildlife inhabits the area, including deer, antelope, coyote, snakes, lizards and birds so keep your eyes open and your camera ready.

150 million years ago, this area was part of a large, shallow lake and was teaming with Brontosaurs and Allosaurs. As these massive beasts plodded along the muddy edge of this lake they left their footprints in the mud, which were eventually buried and turned to stone. Today, over 1,300 of these footprints, extending on a 1/4 mile plain, are exposed at the Picketwire Canyonlands dinosaur track site. Forty percent of the tracks were left by the Brontosaurs, a massive, four-footed plant eater. Parallel trackways indicate that several younger Brontosaurus were traveling as a group heading west along the shoreline, which is the first evidence of social behavior among younger brontosaurs from the Morrison Formation. The remaining sixty percent of the tracks were left by the Allosaurus, a two footed, ferocious, meat eating scavenger who possibly hunted in packs and left three toed footprints behind.

Native American Rock Art can be found in Picketwire Canyon. Very little is known of the prehistoric Native Americans of this area, but archaeologists suspect they were nomadic hunter-gatherers whose visits were short as they followed migrating game. Some of the rock art in this area may be 375 to 4500 years old.

Image copyright 2016 Jon Burch Photography

Uploaded

June 24th, 2016

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Viewed 237 Times  -  Last Visitor from New York, NY on 04/16/2024 at 6:06 AM

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