[Rockhounds] A diner discovered 100 million-year-old dinosaur footprints in a restaurant

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

If you need an excuse to head to brunch this weekend, allow yourself to
consider the possibility that your French toast may cause you to expand
scientific discovery and research.

Earlier this month, an observant patron at a restaurant in southwest China
spotted a set of footprints in the stone floor of the courtyard where they
were dining.

And after the proper authorities were called in to observe and identify,
the paleontologists on the scene discovered a new set of footprints, which
they say belong to two dinosaurs that walked the planet some 100 million
years ago.

Paleontologist Dr. Lida Xing was one of the experts called in to
investigate. He told CNN that his team used a 3D scanner to confirm that
the imprints were left by sauropods.

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/23/1113008177/southwest-china-dinosaur-footprint-restaurant-discovery-sauropod-development



Imagine walking into a restaurant in search of something delicious, only to
find dinosaur footprints dating back to the Cretaceous! Believe it or not,
that’s precisely what happened with a palaeontology-enthusiast in China
earlier this month.

On July 10, Ou Hongtao visited a restaurant in Leshan (based in China’s
Sichuan province) as per usual, when his eyes caught something quite
unusual. In the yard of the restaurant, he spotted “special dents” on the
ground that looked very much like dinosaur footprints to him.

His assumptions were soon confirmed by a team headed by Dr Lida Xing, a
palaeontologist and associate professor at the China University of
Geosciences.

https://weather.com/en-IN/india/news/news/2022-07-22-footprints-of-worlds-largest-dinosaur-found-at-china-restaurant