Tuesday, 5 April 2022

Constructive Destruction?

Utah's Mill Canyon site (near Moab) is a tourist attraction. It has impressive fossil remains of some 200 individual tracks left by at least 10 species of dinosaur. The tracks were made some 112 million years ago, in the early Cretaceous period. These tracks have now been damaged by a contractor, employed to improve the viewing opportunities for visitors at the site (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/apr/04/112m-year-old-dinosaur-tracks-damaged-in-utah-by-construction-machinery). The contractor was hired to remove an old boardwalk, in the site's most popular area. This was to be replaced by an elevated platform, from which the public could view the tracks more easily. A digger was driven across this area, to rip out the old boardwalk. This and worker's boots, substantially damaged some of the tracks. Reports from members of the public, resulted in the Bureau of Land Management urgently closing down the work. There's not much point having a neat viewing platform, to look at something that might well be eventually lost forever!

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