A geology tour guide has discovered a fossilised dinosaur footprint believed to be 170m years old along the coast near Whitby.
Steve Cousins, aka the “Rock Showman”, was taking a school trip on an educational fossil walk at Saltwick Bay when he noticed the imprint in a sandstone rock.
He said: “The kids were all very excited. It was great to have this find shared with others, and to have it as such an authentic learning experience.”
The fossil, believed to be a stegosaur footprint, is now on display at nearby Whitby Holiday Park’s Jet Bistro and is free for the public to visit.
The fossil was located next to one of the regular footprints Mr Cousins visits with his tour groups, but had previously been buried out of sight under the sand.
To verify his discovery, Mr Cousins contacted his friend, the palaeontologist Dr Liam Herringshaw, who used an app to take a 3D scan of the rock.
Dr Herringshaw explained: “Middle Jurassic footprint-bearing sandstones are found in rocks across the North York Moors and along the tops of many of the cliffs along the North Yorkshire coast.
“The thing that I think surprises people is that they’re really quite common – in the world they’re not but in Yorkshire we’ve got rocks that are just the right age, just the right type and they happen to pop out on the beaches of Whitby, Scarborough – quite a few places up and down the coast.”
Explaining how these fossils continued to appear, he said: “Almost all the dinosaur footprints we find on the Yorkshire coast come from sandstones that were formed in the middle of the Jurassic period.
“In the last few million years, the pressure of Africa and Europe colliding and building mountains like the Alps and Pyrenees, that stress has caused tectonic forces to push our crust back up again.”
Although still awaiting official confirmation, Mr Cousins believes the footprint came from the back foot of a stegosaur, dating back around 170m years.
“It’s always really special when I find something like this along the coast, particularly when it’s clear enough to be able to say ‘I’m pretty sure this is that’,” he said.
“With dinosaur footprints it’s most likely you’re not going to be able to say it’s this creature or that creature, it’s a front leg or back leg but then you’ll get some prints which are just a textbook case.”
Mr Cousins and Dr Herringshaw work together at Earth Science Outreach UK, a charity they jointly founded with the aim of engaging the public with local geology and palaeontology events and tours.
Both men are passionate that any finds are accessible to the public, to further knowledge and understanding of the prehistoric era.
Combining his background in both geology and the performing arts, Mr Cousins can often be seen performing as ‘Mr Rock Showman’ at science fairs, museums and festivals, as well as leading educational walking tours to spot fossils along the beaches of North Yorkshire.
“To me, all of the North Yorkshire stretch of coast is an outdoor museum,” Mr Cousins added.
“One of the pleasures of my life is that I get to take people out to this coastline, and help them understand what they’re looking for.”