The Lapworth Museum’s Assistant Curator recently visited the ‘dinosaur highway’.
The Universities of Birmingham and Oxford have once again set out to Dewars Farm Quarry, Oxfordshire in a bid to uncover even more of the 166 million-year-old trackways that rocked the world in January 2025. The new dig started on a different trackway, spanning an adjacent area of the quarry, but one still produced by sauropods - long-necked dinosaurs traversing a muddy lagoon.
This time, the Lapworth Museum of Geology was able to lend an extra trowel in the form of J. D. Dixon, a former UOB undergraduate himself. He visited the site on 23 June 2025 and worked in a small group with postdoctoral researcher Davide Foffa to uncover one of these large Jurassic indentations. As the hours progressed, it became clear to the team that this particular marking consisted of two overlapping prints, with one probably belonging to the manus (hand) and the other to the pes (foot) of one or more individual dinosaurs. The pes was even unique in showing the potential outline of toes.
What I find compelling about this project is the inclusion of undergraduate students from both Birmingham and Oxford. Not only does their effort make the whole dig possible, but it provides essential training for those very early in their careers at an internationally important site.
This year, the Museum unveiled a Temporary Exhibition called 125 years of research and education at the Lapworth Museum of Geology, designed by University of Birmingham undergraduates which featured a life-size cast of one of the footprints excavated at the ‘dinosaur highway’ alongside their personal stories.
Assistant Curator, Lapworth Museum of Geology
Staff profile for J. D. Dixon, Assistant Curator at the Lapworth Museum of Geology.
