MANCHESTER Thousands of dinosaur foorprints in the Spanish Pyrenees that were being eroded by the elements have been saved for study by laser scanning.

Three-dimensional images of 3,000 tracks, fossilised in a quarry at Fumanya, in Catalonia, have been recorded using technology more usually employed by the oil exploration industry. Analysis of the prints has confimed that one set of tracks was made by a sauropod, the biggest creatures to walk the Earth. Another set was almost certainly made by a therapod, a two-legged predator such as Tyrannosaurus rex, said Phil Manning, from the University of Manchester.

Using a laser scanning system called Riegl, right, to record dinosaur tracks for the first time, the researchers were able to record every print digitally in three dimensions and in colour.

Dr Manning said: “We can produce a representation of everything on the rocky outcrops, from a single footfall to a whole set of footprints.”

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