Save the Tracks

Tracks display building

The Problem

Disintegration of the Glen Rose Dinosaur Tracks – mainly a result of 70 years of moisture transfer inside a non-climate controlled display building – has led to near destruction of this important piece of Texas natural history.

A formal assessment of the stone, conducted in 2009 by Conservation Solutions, Inc., revealed that the tracks lay on a cracked slab of unreinforced cement. The experts reported that the lack of an effective moisture barrier between the trackway stone and the ground has allowed wicking of moisture into the stone. This has mobilized soluble salts from the original gypsum plaster fills between the blocks of stone, which have migrated into the stone itself thereby degrading the stone. Lack of environmental controls in the building, such as heating and air conditioning, has further promoted deterioration of the trackways by the salts.

Why we care