NSF RAPID: Salvaging a newly discovered dinosaur trackway from southwest Arkansas, USA.

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On 6 June 2011, the University of Arkansas Department of Geosciences received a citizen?s report of a dinosaur trackway exhumed in southwest Arkansas. The trackway is paleontologically significant as the first occurrence of tracks from a large theropod (tentatively attributed to Acrocanthosaurus atokensis) in Arkansas. These tracks occur among a diverse assortment of other dinosaur track morphologies (sauropods, ornithodopods, smaller theropods, and other as-yet-unidentified quadrupedal dinosaurs). Scientists from the University of Arkansas, University of Kansas, and University of Texas ? San Antonio will use state-of-the-art laser imaging to create virtual reconstructions of the entire trackway site (approximately 6,000 m2). In addition, the scientific team will attempt to preserve portions of the trackways using traditional casting techniques and quarrying of the trackways for later study and public display. Publicly disseminating information from this well-preserved assemblage of dinosaur tracks provides an exceptional opportunity for informal science education in Arkansas and nationwide.The site is also of geological importance to studies attempting to reconstruct global climate during the early Cretaceous period (125 ? 100 million years ago). The trackway is developed among evaporites (primarily gypsum, but also gypsiferous mudstones and thin limestones) of the DeQueen limestone in SW Arkansas. This site was interpreted to lie beneath the descending limb of the early Cretaceous atmospheric Hadley Cell and may aid in delineation of the early Cretaceous global hydrologic cycle. Finally, the project engages three early career scientists, two of whom are from an underreprestented group (Hispanic females), as collaborators; one of these will join the University of Arkansas Department of Geosciences faculty in August 2012. Participation in this research project provides a unique opportunity for these early career scientists to establish collaborative relationships and in developing vigorous, cutting-edge research programs.