Ancient tracks may record the stampede of turtles disturbed by the earthquake

Possible turtle tracks in Monte Conero, Italy

Paolo Sandroni

Strange impressions on a rock face in Italy may have been left by a stampede of sea turtles disturbed by an earthquake about 83 million years ago.

Free climbers have discovered unusual features in an area off-limits to the public on the slopes of Monte Conero on Italy's east coast.

There are more than 1,000 prints in two locations – one more than 100 meters above the ocean, and a second cliff that fell onto La Vela Beach. These rocks are composed of limestone that formed from soft sediments on the bottom of the shallow sea in the Cretaceous period.

The climbers took photos that were later shown to Alessandro Montanari at the Coldigioco Geological Observatory in Italy and his colleagues. The scientists then got permission from Conero Provincial Park managers to survey the area on foot and using drones.

Montanari says it's impossible to be sure which animals made the marks, but only two groups of vertebrates inhabited the oceans at that time: fish and marine reptiles. The team ruled out fish, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs, leaving sea turtles as the most likely candidates.

Because the seafloor is a dynamic, soft environment, in order to preserve the prints, they had to be buried almost immediately after they were made – which would have happened during an earthquake.

“[It may have been] “There was a strong earthquake, which scared the bigos out of these poor animals that were peacefully lounging in the nutrient-rich, shallow water environment,” Montanari says.

“They are all swimming in panic towards the open sea west of the reef, and some of them reach the bottom of the clean sea, leaving traces of their paddle.”

However, the sea turtle stampede is just a hypothesis, and the team now hopes to involve specialist archaeologists, who study archaeological fossils such as tracks, in the next stage of the research.

If the marks are sea turtle tracks, they “would easily be the most numerous in the world,” says Anthony Romelio of the University of Queensland in Australia.

However, without having visited the site or seen high-quality photographs, he doubts that the prints are made by sea turtles. “The surface marks do not show the spacing, rhythm, or anatomy expected from sea turtle flipper strikes,” he says. “I am of the opinion that they are not of biological origin, but are instead abiotic structures.”

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