Turkmenistan’s plateau famous for fossilized dinosaur tracks

Some eight hours dusty drive from the nearest major settlement, tucked into the eastern corner of Turkmenistan and unknown to the outside world until the second half of the last century, lies one of the most mythical yet least visited spots in the former Soviet Union.
Turkmenistan’s Plateau of the Dinosaurs is the location of one of the most magnificent collections of fossilized dinosaur tracks anywhere on Earth, which only became known to Soviet paleontologists in the 1950s.
“Steven Spielberg should have shot ‘Jurassic Park’ here. Here the tracks of the dinosaurs are real and not made by computers,” said Aman, 35, an inhabitant of the village of Khodja Pil at the foot of the plateau.
On the plateau, some 2,500 dinosaur tracks have been discovered. Some are 40 centimeters long and 30 centimeters wide, others even bigger, measuring 70 by 60.
A dinosaur five to six meters tall could take a stride of up to two meters.
The plateau is renowned for having the longest trackways — continuous lines of footprints made as a dinosaur walked or ran — anywhere in the world.
In places they reach up to 200 meters. It seems improbable that what is now an arid mountain zone could sustain such life but 150 million years ago when these creatures reigned supreme on Earth the eco-system was completely different.
“Some 145-150 million years ago, there were lakes and marshes and herds of dinosaurs strode along the banks. There were both vegetarian and carnivorous dinosaurs.
“This sandy marshland quickly silted up and so these prehistoric tracks left their mark forever,” said Anatoly Bushmakin, a Turkmen scientist specializing in the plateau.
Still one of the most isolated countries in the world almost two-and-a-half decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan sees only a trickle of tourists and most visitors who make it out to the Plateau of the Dinosaurs are locals.
“It is like the dinosaurs were here just recently and if you go up the mountain you can imagine that they are walking away into the distance,” said Gulya, 27, a visitor from the nearest large town of Turkmenabat.
“It’s amazing how everyone of us can somehow touch eternity,” she added.