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Like 'walking through the woods of millions of years ago': Ancient ecosystem brimming with dinosaur tracks discovered in Alaska

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Researchers have discovered a cache of 100 million-year-old dinosaur tracks and other fossils embedded in the foothills of an Alaskan mountain range. 

The fossil site, in the Nanushuk Formation beneath the De Long Mountains, provides a window into a thriving Cretaceous ecosystem populated with dinosaurs of all sizes, according to a University of Alaska Fairbanks statement released March 8. 

Paleontologists examined the site between 2015 and 2017. They found 75 dinosaur tracks left by meat and plant-eating dinosaurs, though they didn't identify specific species. 

"This place was just crazy rich with dinosaur footprints," lead author Anthony Fiorillo, executive director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, said in the statement.

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Fiorillo and his colleagues discovered the site was a preserved ancient landscape, with fossils of 2-foot-wide (60 centimeters) tree stumps, leaves, tracks and feces.

"It was just like we were walking through the woods of millions of years ago," he said.

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