Locality: Middletown, Connecticut, U.S.A.

Era: Early Jurassic
Geological Age: Early Jurassic, about 201–195 million years ago

Description: This slab preserves a dinosaur footprint from the Connecticut River Valley, one of the places where the scientific study of dinosaur tracks began. The track and its counterpart are preserved in fine-grained grey to black rock of the Hartford Basin. The basin was a rift valley that opened as the supercontinent Pangaea began to break apart in the Early Jurassic, with lakes, rivers and mudflats where dinosaurs left their tracks.

Tracks of this kind are named Anchisauripus, meaning "Anchisaurus foot". Richard Swann Lull named them in 1904, thinking they were made by the plant-eating dinosaur Anchisaurus. Specialists now believe a meat-eating theropod made them, possibly a larger relative of the Grallator trackmaker. Anchisauripus prints are typically 15 to 25 cm long.

Middletown and neighbouring Portland were famous for their brownstone quarries, which supplied building stone and footprint slabs to 19th-century naturalists. One of the classic type specimens studied by Edward Hitchcock was found in use as a flagstone in Middletown. Tracks are common in these rocks, but bones are rare. Finding bones and tracks on the same slab is exceedingly rare.

This piece comes as a matching pair: the two halves of the slab, split along the layer that holds the footprint. Each half is 20.5 cm long.

Size of half 1: 20.5cm x 12cm x 2cm
Size of half 2 : 20.5cm x 12cm x 2cm 
Weight of half 1: 1230g
Weight of half 2: 1550g

Quantity: 1 pair (2 halves)

With this product, you will get the actual stone in the photograph. We do what we can to buy good quality products and price them honestly. The rocks may differ from the photos, but we hope we do them justice.