Dinosaur Valley State Park

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Dinosaur Valley State Park is a state park in Texas near Glen Rose, Texas.

1 History
2 Controversy
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

Dinosaur Valley State Park, located just northwest of Glen Rose in Somervell County, is a 1,524.72-acre (6.1703 km²) scenic park set astride the Paluxy River. The land for the park was acquired from private owners under the State Parks Bonds Program during 1968 and opened to the public in 1972. In addition to being a state park, it is also a National Natural Landmark.

Eastward-dipping limestones, sandstones, and mudstones of the Glen Rose Formation were deposited during the early Cretaceous Period approximately 113 million years ago along the shorelines of an ancient sea, form the geological setting for the park area. Over the last million years or so, these layered formations have been eroded, dissected and sculpted by the Paluxy River which, in many places, has cut down to resistant beds and planed off sizable exposures of rock in the river bottom.

[edit] Controversy

Outside, but near the Dinosaur Valley State Park, in the limestone deposits along the Paluxy River "twin sets" tracks were found in the Glen Rose Formation. Originally discovered in the early 1900s, starting in the 1960s and 1970s creationists alleged that one set of tracks were human and other dinosaurs to support their "flaws" in evolutionary theory.^[1] However, as biologist Massimo Pigliucci noted, geologists in the 1980s "clearly demonstrated that no human being left those prints," but rather "they were in fact metatarsal dinosaur tracks, together with a few pure and simple fakes."^[2]