Dinosaur tracks from 113m years ago hit by severe drought

A severe drought has exposed an 113-million-year-old dinosaur track on a riverbank in central Texas.

The massive tracks, which belonged to an Acrocanthosaurus, had not been seen since 2000, as they sat beneath several layers of water and sediment.

Park Superintendent Jeff Davis said the tracks at Dinosaur Valley State Park in Texas are among the best preserved in the world.

According to the US Drought Monitor, almost all of Texas is experiencing drought.

Last week, over 87 per cent of the state was facing one of the three most severe drought categories - severe, extreme and exceptional.

The extremely dry, hot conditions of summer caused a river in a Central Texas park to dry up almost completely, revealing dinosaur tracks.

Superintendent Davies told the BBC that the recently uncovered track, called the "Lone Ranger Trackway", belonged to an Acrocanthosaurus, which ran for about 100 feet on that trail. In total there are an estimated 140 tracks from this single dinosaur, of which about 60 are now visible.

Acrocanthosaurus was a theropod, a "distinctive three-legged dinosaur", Mr Davis said. Standing at a height of about 15 feet, he must have weighed about seven tons.

These dinosaurs probably hunted Sauroposidon. Other species whose tracks are also found in the state park.

Sauroposeidon was 60 feet tall with a long neck, and weighed about 44 tons when fully grown.

The extreme weather has led to other surprises as well.

Human remains have been discovered in Lake Mead - America's largest reservoir - as water levels drop.

And in Europe, declining water levels have led to the appearance of "hunger stones" engraved on the waterlines of rivers during past droughts as a warning to future generations that when the stones are above water, suffering lies ahead. .

Not all droughts are caused by climate change, but more heat in the atmosphere is pulling more moisture from the earth and making drought worse.

The world has already warmed by about 1.2C since the industrial age began and unless governments around the world make drastic cuts in emissions, temperatures will continue to rise.