Southern Africa is world famous for its fossil record of creatures that lived in the distant past, including dinosaurs. But, about 182 million years ago, a massive eruption of lava covered much of the landscape (the inland Karoo Basin), where most dinosaurs roamed. After that, the dinosaur fossil record for the Jurassic period (which lasted from 201 million to 145 million years ago) in the region suddenly fell silent.
However, two recent exciting discoveries confirm that there is much more to be discovered about the dinosaurs that lived in southern Africa long after the lava flows.
At first, dinosaur tracks were about 140 million years old informed On a remote stretch of coast in the Western Cape province of South Africa in 2025. These were the first people found in the area from that geological time period (Cretaceous, 145 million to 66 million years ago).
Now, We found more.
Our work as a team of ichnologists (studying fossil tracks and scars) often takes us to the Knysna area of the Western Cape coast, where we investigate tracks in coastal areas. aeolianites (cemented sand dunes) are 50,000 to 400,000 years old.
During one of these trips, in early 2025, we decided to visit a small piece of rock that was formed during the Early Cretaceous period. It is the only place nearby where rock of this age is exposed, and much of it is under water at high tide. We thought maybe we’d be so lucky that we got it tripartite (dinosaur) teeth discovered In those rocks by a 13-year-old boy in 2017.
We were pleasantly surprised when Linda Helm, a member of our party, told us in a state of excitement that she had found dinosaur tracks. Further investigation of the deposits revealed more than two dozen possible tracks.
This so-called Brenton Formation exposure is small, measuring no more than 40 meters in length and five meters in width, with the cliffs rising to a maximum of five meters from the coast. Dozens of tracks found in this small area indicate a considerable presence of dinosaurs in the area during the Cretaceous.
in our Study We estimate these tracks to be 132 million years old, making them the youngest known dinosaur tracks in southern Africa (50 million years older than the youngest tracks reported from the Karoo Basin). They constitute the second record of dinosaur tracks from the South African Cretaceous and the second record from the Western Cape Province. Some of them are found on rock surfaces, while others are found in rocks in profile.
dinosaur fossil treasures
Southern Africa is rich in footprints and tracks of vertebrates mesozoic Epoch (“Age of Dinosaurs”, 252 million to 66 million years ago, a time period that also includes the Jurassic) Karoo Basin – A vast inland basin filled with thick deposits of sedimentary deposits.
dinosaur tracks from Triassic and jurassic period is Abundant In Lesotho and around areas In the Free State and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa.
But the vast amount of lava, now called Drakensberg GroupThese track-bearing deposits were covered up as a result of massive eruptions. Some dinosaurs appear to have survived the initial impacts of the lava flows for a short time, and were probably among the last vertebrates to live here. Karoo Basin.
Then, as the continent of gondwana Fragmented, limited Cretaceous terrestrials in the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods Deposits were created In the rift valleys of what are now the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa.
Dinosaur body fossils have been reported from those deposits, most of which are from the Eastern Cape. These include the first dinosaur identified in the Southern Hemisphere, now recognized as stegosauras well as sauropodsA coelurosaurian And iguanodontid Newborns and adolescents.
The only examples of dinosaur skeletal material from the Western Cape are a few isolated sauropod teeth, dislocated bones of a probable sauropod, and two cases from the Knysna area: the theropod tooth mentioned above and a part of a tibia.
But now we are behind their tracks.
Dinosaurs of Knysna
The tracks we found in Knysna are in the modern intertidal zone, where twice-daily high tides cover most of them.
It would be hard to imagine a scene more different than what we see today, 132 million years ago, with spectacular beaches, spectacular estuaries and lots of development made by humans. In the Early Cretaceous, many dinosaurs may have appeared in the region, perhaps living in tidal channels or point bars (river beaches). The vegetation would also have been very different from what it is today.
What were the Brenton Formation tracks made by? theropodspossibly ornithopods (Both of these types of dinosaurs were bipedal), and possibly sauropods (Giant dinosaurs with very long necks and very long tails that were quadrupedal, walking on four legs). Theropods were meat eaters, while ornithopods and sauropods were plant eaters.
Sometimes it can be challenging to distinguish theropod tracks from ornithopod tracks. Sauropod tracks are large and do not always have clear marks, sometimes making them difficult to identify with confidence.
In most cases, we have chosen not to “over-explain” which types of dinosaurs made which tracks, because they just aren’t clear enough. The purpose of our paper is simply to document that dinosaur tracks of this age are relatively abundant in the Brenton Formation.
The fact that Early Cretaceous dinosaur tracks have now been identified in both Roberge Formation And the Brenton Formation suggests that much more may be found if searched in the right places. There are many other exposures of non-marine Cretaceous rocks in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape. Systematic exploration of these deposits is now indicated, in the hope that in addition to finding more dinosaur skeletal material, more dinosaur tracks (and potentially those of other vertebrates) will be identified.
Mark G. Dixon and Fred Van Berkel Center for African Coastal Palaeoecology, Nelson Mandela UniversityContributed to this research.