5000 Dinosaur Footprints on a 300 ft Wall in Bolivia

At Cal Orko you will find 462 distinct dinosaur tracks from at least 8 different species, totaling an incredible 5,055 individual dinosaur footprints.

So how do thousands of dinosaur footprints come to be, on a seemingly vertical rock face hundreds of feet high, They can climb walls aswell?

Ian Belcher of The Guardian explains:

“It was unique climate fluctuations that made the region a palaeontological honey pot. The creatures’ feet sank into the soft shoreline in warm damp weather, leaving marks that were solidified by later periods of drought. Wet weather then returned, sealing the prints below mud and sediment. The wet-dry pattern was repeated seven times, preserving multiple layers of prints. The cherry on the cake was added when tectonic activity pushed the flat ground up to a brilliant viewing angle – as if nature was aware of its tourism potential.”

Cal Orko is one of the few locations in the world where you will find a concentration of footprints from a variety of dinosaurs that lived at the end of the Cretaceous period. The sheer size, geological significance, biodiversity and social behaviour that can be studied here makes Cal Orko a special place.

Take the trail of Johnny Walker for example. Johnny Walker was the name given to a baby Tyrannosaurus Rex whose 367 meter (~1200 ft) path can be traced and observed here.

Cal Orko is situated entirely within a limestone quarry owned by FANCESA, Bolivia’s National Cement Factory. Located in the ‘El Molino’ formation, the sight of heavy mining machinery set against a backdrop of 68 million-year-old dinosaur footprints creates an intriguing parallel.