Tetrapod Trackways

In 1993, on the picturesque Island of Valentia, County Kerry, Ireland, an undergraduate geology student made the discovery of a lifetime.

While examining these rocks on the island's coast he came across a rock platform containing a set of ancient animal footprints. The tracks have since been dated to almost 400 million years ago and are regarded as among the earliest footprints known to science, and certainly the oldest known footprints in Europe.

385 million years ago, most of Southern Ireland was part of a gigantic flood-plain near the equator. Every so often, massive floods inundated the region, depositing large quantities of silt and sand. At one stage a four-legged animal1 walked across this silt as it was drying out. Its tracks were preserved, just as if it had walked across wet concrete.