Dinosaur Footprints Safely Extracted from Colorado Golf Course

A dinosaur footprint was removed from the Fossil Trace Golf Course in Golden, Colorado on Wednesday, CBS News Colorado reported.

A team of experts was tasked with removing the dinosaur footprint out of safety concerns. Earlier this month, the organization Friends of Dinosaur Ridge realized that more than 40% of the block containing the footprint was no longer attached to a larger wall.

“If it did fall, it weighs so much, it was likely going to shatter itself. So rather than going the whole winter, we decided to come down and help them pull it off,” Colton Snyder, a paleontologist with History Colorado, explained to CBS News Colorado.

On Golden’s Triceratops Trail, the fossil was wrapped in a field jacket and covered with plaster. The jacket and cast are intended to protect the print so that it doesn’t hit the ground and shatter. Later this year, the triceratops footprint will go on view at the Golden History Museum.

Similar footprints identified at Dinosaur Ridge near Morrison, Colorado, are also in danger of being erased by inclement weather. They are currently being mapped with drones.

“We are in one of the most important fossil areas in all of Colorado, arguably one of the most important places in the entire world,” director of the Golden History Museum Nathan Richie told CBS News Colorado.