3D printing and AR solve dinosaur fossil mystery

In the 1960s, Australian coal miners stumbled across huge, bird-life footprints protruding from the ceiling of their subterranean work site in south-eastern Queensland. The marks, more than a foot long, belonged to a creature that trekked across swampy land around 250 million years ago. They sent paleontologists into a tizzy, who though the tracks belonged to a carnivorous dinosaur—a creature larger than any other predator of its time.

Some fossil experts across the globe had their doubts about the footprints coming from a predator, though. But they couldn’t quite…