Once upon a time, College Park was a different kind of park – a Jurassic Park.
Self-proclaimed dinosaur tracker Ray Stanford recently discovered tracks of a rare dinosaur species, one in a chain of discoveries that have identified Prince George’s County as a hotbed for a variety of dinosaur activity.
“There are definitely dinosaurs underneath the University of Maryland,” Stanford said. “On the east side, where [McKeldin] Mall is, one can definitely find the sub-straight that has the tracks in them. There is no question about it.”
According to Thomas Holtz, senior lecturer and director of the department of geology’s College Park Scholars Earth, Life, and Time Program, the “substraight” Stanford refers to is a strip of land rich in dinosaur tracks and fossils “that parallels Interstate 95 and Route 1 and runs through the College Park area.”
Stanford initially discovered slabs in rocks that encased the tracks of hypsilophodon, a rare species, while walking along a stream in the county in 1994. Stanford and his sons were looking for tribal American Indian artifacts when they stumbled upon the footprints instead.
At first, Stanford was skeptical the bones could be associated with any prehistoric animals. But based on the knowledge he had amassed while reading books about dinosaurs on his own and to his sons, he realized the tracks could only belong to such animals.
“Later on that night, as I was in bed, it dawned on me,” Stanford said. There was no denying it – there was a dinosaur track in that stream.
Stanford returned to the stream and continued tracking the bones, initiating an unofficial career in dinosaur tracking. In the course of the past 14 years, he has found hundreds of tracks in Prince George’s County and has been published in several scientific journals.
“It’s great fun every time you come across something,” Stanford said. “You’re looking at a truly amazing animal, sometimes with tracks that have never been found before – I can’t think of a much greater thrill than that.”
Stanford, also a longtime professional UFO tracker, said dinosaur tracks can be very large, with toe imprints more than a foot long.
Holtz said Stanford’s discovery proves anyone can be a dinosaur tracker.
“It also goes to show that there are discoveries out in nature that can be made even here in the suburbs,” Holtz said. “We sometimes think of naturalists having to go out in distant lands, but you can do it literally in our backyard. … For all we know, we have complete dinosaur skeletons underneath the dorms.”
Students said they were awed by the idea that dinosaurs could have roamed the campus landscape.
“It’s cool that I’m living in a place where thousands of millions years ago there were dinosaurs the size of these buildings,” said Feliks Golden, a letters and sciences freshman. “It’s crazy!”
Freshman psychology major Joe Grammer used to be fascinated with dinosaurs as a little boy – he even committed his state dinosaur, hadrosaurus, to memory.
But while his dinosaur love faded as he got older, the recent news has reignited his interest in the creatures. In fact, Grammer has vowed to renew his prehistoric obsession if researchers “discovered something cool when they excavate.”
Other students said they are neither excited nor skeptical, but noted the current nature of College Park may be just as dangerous now as it was back then.
“I bet it was safer wandering around here when dinosaurs were in College Park than wandering around Knox Road at night,” said freshman aerospace engineering major Steve Sherman, referencing crime in the city.
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