Footprints
Set in stone.
Allan Patrick from Natal, Brasil — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Rocmayer — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Allan Patrick from Natal, Brasil — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Rocmayer — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Rocmayer — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Rocmayer — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Allan Patrick from Natal, Brasil — CC BY-SA 2.0
Dinosaur Valley is a natural monument created by the state of Paraíba in 2002 deep in the semi-arid backlands of the state's west, some 420 kilometres from João Pessoa. It is one of Brazil's most important fossil sites, famous for hundreds of fossilised footprints. Across the Peixe River basin around Sousa, tracks and prints from more than eighty dinosaur species appear in some twenty rock layers. They range from five centimetres, left by an animal the size of a chicken, to forty centimetres for the prints of an iguanodon, and most belong to meat-eaters. It is considered Latin America's largest known set of early Cretaceous tracks. The key trackways lie seven kilometres from Sousa along the PB-391, where walkways among the rocks let you see the prints up close. The heat here is intense, so go early in the morning and bring water and a hat.
Set in stone.
Close-up views.
Semi-arid landscape.
PB-391 road, about 7 km from Sousa, Paraíba
Early morning, as it gets very hot by midday.