Overview
- The peer-reviewed PLOS One study documents about 16,600 theropod footprints at Carreras Pampa, with total individual prints across the complex approaching 18,000.
- Surveying nine connected sites, the team mapped a single track-bearing surface of roughly 7,485 square meters aligned along an ancient coast dated to 68–70 million years ago.
- Trackways record walking, running, abrupt turns and tail drags, plus 1,378 traces in former shallow-water sediments interpreted as swimming attempts, including a 130-meter claw-drag mark.
- The assemblage is described as the largest interconnected dinosaur footprint complex yet reported, with an average density near 2.6 prints per square meter.
- Researchers favor a transit-route interpretation with mixed-size theropods moving through briefly, while attributions to very large, T. rex–scale trackmakers remain unproven and disputed.