When dinosaurs roamed the earth

Dinosaurs trudging through mudflats more than 65 mn years ago in

what is now the remaining evidence in northern Spain in the form of fossilized

footprints just before their extinction. But for the past two decades,

scientists have gazed with increasing frustration at those potentially

informative fossil details because their location is high up on the side of a

Catalonian coalmine.

The footprints were exposed 15-20 years ago by open-cast

coalmining, but one could not climb up and reach due the risk of damaging

surfaces.

Time was running out to study the footprints, which were

gradually being eroded by extremes of heat and cold of the Catalonian climate,

until Manning came up with a novel solution: He had observed the long-range

infrared laser scanners used by fellow researchers in the petroleum study group.

With this technology, they mapped the three-dimensional shape of rocks that

could contain oil, reported The Guardian.

Manning decided that the only way to make a permanent record of

the footprints was to make 3-D digital maps of them. Although this technique had

been used by researchers at the University of Bournemouth to document early

human footprints in Mexico, it was the first time that infrared laser scanning

had been used on dinosaur tracks.

Manning's group used a Lidar (light detection and range) laser

scanner.

Fresh from his success in Spain, Manning is now trying to find the first

documented footprints of the elusive Tyrannosaurus Rex in Hell Creek in the US.