Hiker discovers fossilized footprints from prehistoric ecosystem in Italian Alps

A remarkable discovery in the Italian Alps has unveiled a 280-million-year-old ecosystem, complete with fossilized footprints, plant imprints, and even traces of raindrops.

In 2023, Claudia Steffensen was walking behind her husband in the Valtellina Orobie Mountains Park in Lombardy when she stepped on a rock that appeared to be a slab of cement, Caliber.Az reports, citing foreign media.

"I then noticed these strange circular designs with wavy lines," Steffensen said. "I took a closer look and realized they were footprints." Upon analyzing the rock, scientists determined the footprints belonged to a prehistoric reptile, sparking curiosity about what other clues might be hidden in the Alps. Experts visited the site several times and uncovered evidence of an entire ecosystem from the Permian period, which lasted from 299 to 252 million years ago.

This period was marked by a rapidly warming climate and culminated in the "Great Dying" extinction event, which wiped out 90 per cent of Earth's species. The fossilized traces of this ancient ecosystem include footprints from reptiles, amphibians, insects, and arthropods, often forming tracks. Along with these, researchers discovered fossils of seeds, leaves, and stems, as well as imprints of raindrops and waves from a prehistoric lake. Evidence of this long-lost ecosystem was found as high as 9,850 feet (3,000 meters) in the mountains and in valleys, where landslides had deposited fossil-bearing rocks over millions of years. 

The remarkable preservation of the ancient ecosystem, captured in fine-grained sandstone, is attributed to its former proximity to water. "The footprints were made when these sandstones and shales were still sand and mud soaked in water at margins of rivers and lakes, which periodically, according to the seasons, dried up," said Ausonio Ronchi, a paleontologist at the University of Pavia in Italy, who studied the fossils. "The summer sun, drying out those surfaces, hardened them to the point that the return of new water did not erase the footprints but, on the contrary, covered them with new clay, forming a protective layer." The fine grain of the sand and mud preserved intricate details, including claw marks and patterns from the animals’ underbellies, according to the statement. 

By Naila Huseynova