Dewars Farm Quarry
Lua error in Module:Coordinates at line 489: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). Dewars Farm Quarry is a limestone quarry in Oxfordshire, England, between Ardley and Middleton Stoney in which extensive tracks of dinosaur footprints were found in 2024. The quarry excavates a layer of limestone which is crushed and graded for use as construction aggregate. The underlying layer contains the footprints, which were formed in mudflats during the Middle Jurassic.[1][2] The tracks are similar to the nearby Ardley Trackways which were found in 1997.[1][2]
A track found in summer 2025, 220 m (720 ft) long, has been described as "one of the longest trackways found anywhere in the world".[3] It shows the tracks of a large sauropod dinosaur, "probably Cetiosaurus", moving at about 2 metres per second (6.6 ft/s), a speed similar to a human walking fast.[3] Megalosaurus prints were also found. The tracks were probably all made over a period of weeks.[3]
At the time the prints were made, the site was much closer to the equator and covered with a shallow tropical sea. The quarry floor has many tiny shells of sea creatures; an almost complete tiny sea urchin was found.[3]
An excavation and investigation by paleontologists was featured in January 2025 in Alice Roberts' television series Digging for Britain.[4][5]
References
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