The Dinosaur Footprints at Veillon Beach (Vendée)

The low tides brought about as a result of the spring equinox has exposed a remarkable series of Early Jurassic trace fossils, giving residents of the town of Talmont-Saint-Hilaire the chance to go “Walking with Dinosaurs”.  The exceptional low tides on France’s North Atlantic coast have revealed 200-million-year-old footprints as well as ripple marks preserved in the mudstone and sandstone which were laid down at the very beginning of the Jurassic (Hettangian faunal stage).

Dinosaur Footprints

The site represents an estuary, or shallow bay area and this was criss-crossed by many different types of dinosaurs.  Hundreds of footprints have been recorded, a large number have been removed to prevent further damage by erosion, but at very low tides, especially in the spring when the seaweed and algae growth is not extensive, many three-toed prints can still be seen.

Discovered in 1963

The site was discovered in 1963 by a local engineer and chemist Gilbert Bessonnat, but it was not until March 1965 when a team of French palaeontologists mapped the area in earnest that the full significance of the location was revealed.  The mapping project begun on March 19th that year, taking advantage of the very low tide associated with the spring equinox, allowed the scientists to discover what has turned out to be the largest single concentration of dinosaur ichnofauna in the whole of France.

Dinosaur trace fossils from the Lower Jurassic are exceptionally rare, the site is protected and no fossil collecting is allowed.  After all, the sandstones and mudstones preserved here record terrestrial life shortly after the End Triassic extinction event, those footprints were made some fifty million years before the likes of Stegosaurus and Diplodocus and other iconic Jurassic dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

A Dozen Ichnospecies

In all, about a dozen different ichnospecies have been identified, including large and small theropods.  Some footprints may not represent dinosaurs, for example, some trace fossils have been assigned to the Order Rauisuchia and ascribed to the Postosuchus genus (a type of ancient, terrestrial crocodylomorph).  Ichnospecies associated with the site include: Eubrontes veillonensis tentatively described as a megalosaur, Talmontopus tersi which could be a bipedal ornithischian dinosaur and several dinosaurs assigned to the coelophysids (ichnogenus Grallator).

It seems that low tides on the North Atlantic coast of France, are providing scientists with a unique opportunity to learn about life in the Early Jurassic, well at least over the spring and autumn equinox anyway.

For dinosaur and prehistoric animal models: Dinosaur Models and Prehistoric Animal Figures.