Dinosaur site adds to Korea's ecological importance: geologist

SEOUL, Oct. 24 (Yonhap) -- Dinosaur footprints discovered along South Korea's southern coast have raised hopes the area will be designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO and is an important ecological find, an Irish geologist who visited the site said Friday.

"There are what appear to be new discoveries in Haenam," Dr. Patrick McKeever
told reporters, referring to traces dating from the Cretaceous period of
archaeopteryxes, the world's most primitive birds, along the shore.
The discoveries "add importance to the overall ecological view," he said.
McKeever was in South Korea this week on behalf of the International Union for
Convservation of Nature (IUCN), an influential conservation network, to conduct a
field evaluation of the Korean Cretaceous Dinosaur Coast in South Jeolla and
South Gyeongsang Provinces.
The field evaluation precedes UNESCO's acceptance in April next year of IUCN's
recommendations to include the site on UNESCO's World Heritage list. South Korea
applied for the UNESCO designation earlier this year. The area to be designated
extends over Haenam, Hwasun, Yeosu, Goseong and Boseong counties.
UNESCO is expected to make its decision in July 2009.
"Dinosaur tracks were made by the animals while they were alive," said McKeever.
"They often tell us more information on how the animals actually lived than
skeletons. Bones are quite often disarticulated and found away from where the
dinosaurs might have died. Even though geologists can reconstruct them, they tell
us limited information on how the animals actually lived."
The world's largest sites of fossilized dinosaur eggs and footprints from the
Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era are found in various locations along the
southern coast of South Korea.