Death Valley's 'secret' fossil after being hidden for almost a century

Death Valley's 'secret' fossil after being hidden for almost a century

A remote canyon in Death Valley has been kept shielded from the public for the past 76 years, to preserve a huge cache of fossilised animal tracks. The collection of prints is one of the biggest, most diverse and well-preserved in the world. Now palaeontologists, who refer to the secret canyon as 'The Barnyard', have called for the US National Park Service to open up the area to the public.

The remote area in the Death Valley National Park, which straddles the border between California and Nevada, features fossils tracks left by ancient camels, horses, big cats, birds, tapirs and elephant-like mastodons. It has been kept off limits since 1940 and officials ask that its exact location is not divulged.

The oldest of the tracks are thought to date back as far as 5 million years.

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