Finding a single dinosaur track is exciting, but recent discoveries have documented a record-breaking number of tracks. This leads us to ask a simple but important question: how did these tracks form, and what do they tell us about the past?

I previously wrote about a “dinosaur highway” in England containing nearly 200 tracks, but now, according to an article from Discover Magazine, researchers have documented more than 16,000 fossilized footprints in South America, providing a window into the past.

Some have described this scene as another “dinosaur highway,” suggesting it may have once been a common route taken by a variety of theropod dinosaurs, although the exact species remains unidentified. The well- preserved footprints span nine study areas and extend roughly 4.6 miles (7,485 meters) along what is believed to have been the shoreline of a “long-lost” body of water.

As a biblical creationist, I find these extensive trackways strikingly consistent with the global flood described in Genesis. Scripture presents Noah’s Flood as a real, historical catastrophe that destroyed all land-dwelling animals and birds. These tracks fit naturally within that framework.

Consider the behavior inferred by the researchers. They conclude that some of the dinosaurs were “running, making sharp turns, dragging their tails, and in some cases, moving through water.” Such movements are exactly what one would expect at the onset of a global flood. Rising waters would have driven animals to flee, stumble, and struggle, leaving behind a record of panic before they were ultimately buried by sediment.

Evidence consistent with a global flood is not difficult to find for those willing to examine it. Under normal conditions, animal tracks are rarely preserved. Track preservation requires rapid burial, lithification, and cementation- processes that do not typically occur today. Ordinarily, the tracks would be washed away. A global flood, however, would provide vast amounts of sediment and mineral-rich water capable of rapidly covering tracks, expelling water from the sediment, and binding grains together before the impressions could be destroyed.

Interestingly, the researchers note that dinosaur bone fossils are largely absent from the site: “The scarcity of dinosaur bones and eggs in sediments containing abundant footprints, and the scarcity of footprints in layers with abundant bones or eggs, is a well-known paradox in paleontology” [emphasis mine]. They explain that the conditions preserving the footprints were not suitable for preserving bones, stating that carcasses were likely scavenged, eroded, disarticulated, or scattered by waves before burial. Yet we are told that the footprints are abundant due to Bolivia’s unique sediment, stable geology, and rich dinosaur populations. But dinosaur bones are “scarce” because conditions were somehow unfavorable. Hence the paradox. One might reasonably expect that bones, like footprints, would leave impressions in the same sediment and be preserved by similar processes.

A more coherent explanation is that after the tracks were made and rapidly buried in sediment, the floodwaters would have eventually washed the dinosaurs away, burying them in another geologic layer. This would explain why fossilized footprints are rarely found alongside the skeletal remains of the animals that made them. Quite often, the bones appear higher in the geologic column, consistent with continued transport and burial during the Flood.

Many of the tracks are described as “ghost tracks,” consisting primarily of claw marks with little or no heel impression. Thus it is inferred that the dinosaurs were running or trying to stabilize themselves in the mud and trying to avoid sudden obstacles. The study states, “Some swim tracks cross-cut walking tracks, and most swim trackways are oriented toward the SSE.” This implies that as the floodwaters rose, the dinosaurs could no longer walk or run, but were forced to swim, leaving behind claw marks and tail drag impressions as they fought to stay afloat and keep their heads above water.

The article notes that the tracks were made by different groups of carnivorous dinosaurs and suggests that they may have traveled together, but this theory is contrary to current models. A more plausible explanation, however, is that they were independently fleeing the same catastrophic event.

If we accept the biblical narrative of Noah’s flood as a real event, then this kind of preservation makes sense of the data. It explains why so many animals have had their tracks and bones preserved throughout the geologic column, and it is a powerful reminder that the geologic record is consistent with the truth of God’s word.