Drought is exposing world relics -- from dinosaur tracks to Nazi ships

[mahatmakanejeeves]

As record-breaking drought — fueled by human-caused climate change — parches waterways around the world, hidden relics that would have been difficult or impossible to access in milder years are emerging from below the surface. By
@D_Hawk
:

washingtonpost.com
Drought is exposing world relics — from dinosaur tracks to Nazi ships
It's a rare opportunity to study never-before-seen relics, but it comes at an enormous ecological cost and sets off a race against time for researchers.

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RETROPOLIS

Drought is exposing world relics — from dinosaur tracks to Nazi ships

By Derek Hawkins
August 26, 2022 at 12:08 p.m. EDT



Dinosaur tracks from approximately 113 million years ago appear in the dry bed of the Paluxy River in Central Texas. (Dinosaur Valley State Park/AFP/Getty Images)

Previously unseen dinosaur tracks dot a dried-up riverbed in Central Texas. Sunken warships poke out from port waters on the Serbia-Romania border. Once-submerged Buddhist statues loom above the Yangtze River’s banks in Chongqing, China. ... As record-breaking drought — fueled by human-caused climate change — parches waterways around the world, hidden relics that would have been difficult or impossible to access in milder years are emerging from below the surface. ... The discoveries are a world history windfall, offering a rare peek at lost pieces of humanity’s past and ancient life on Earth. ... But their exposure sets off a race against time for researchers, who have only a short window to study them before the rivers roll back.

“We’re amazed at how rapidly things emerge and then disappear in the blink of an eye,” said Vincent Santucci, senior paleontologist at the National Park Service who has documented and collected fossils from eroding cliffs and shorelines. “When we have low water levels, there are sometimes fossils that are exposed that we have not seen in our lifetime and may have never been documented. We rush to preserve those.”

At Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Tex., weeks of blazing heat have wrung the Paluxy River dry, revealing sets of dinosaur footprints that experts say date back 113 million years. ... Some came from a creature called acrocanthosaurus, a three-toed, bipedal carnivore that looked like a slightly smaller Tyrannosaurus rex, according to Stephanie Garcia, a spokesperson for the park. As an adult, it would have stood about 15 feet tall and weighed about seven tons. Another set of footprints came from a four-legged, long-necked herbivore called sauroposeidon that stood a towering 60 feet tall and weighed about 44 tons.

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A fossilized dinosaur footprint in the Paluxy River in Texas. (Dinosaur Valley State Park/AFP/Getty Images)

With rain in upcoming forecasts, Garcia said the tracks will soon be covered again. Workers have cleaned, mapped, measured and photographed tracks to monitor changes over time. The park is also mulling solutions that would allow the tracks to survive longer if they’re exposed again, according to Garcia.

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Wreckage of a World War II German warship is seen in the Danube in Prahovo, Serbia, on Aug. 18. (Fedja Grulovic/Reuters)

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The Dolmen of Guadalperal, also known as the “Spanish Stonehenge,” is seen because of receding waters on Aug. 3. (Susana Vera/Reuters)

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By Derek Hawkins
Derek Hawkins is a reporter covering national and breaking news. Twitter https://twitter.com/d_hawk

[TheRealNorth]

1. I am very worried about its effect on food production....

And how hunger and increased food prices (i.e. inflation) will decrease stability and lead to more authoritarian regimes.