University of Texas at Austin

The Paluxy River dinosaur trackways are a significant part of the collection of the Texas Memorial Museum, located at the University of Texas at Austin. The stones were removed from their original location on the riverbed of the Paluxy River, in the Glen Rose area of Central Texas, by American Museum of Natural History paleontologist Roland T. Bird in 1939 and have been on exhibit in a purpose-built structure at UT Austin since 1940.

Conservation Solutions, Inc. (CSI) was contracted by the University to develop and implement a comprehensive plan to assess, conserve, and relocate the trackways to a designated new location in the adjacent museum building. The goal of this intervention is to arrest the decay and to promote the long term stability and preservation of the trackways.

In preparation for this plan CSI produced the two documents; Conditions Assessment & Materials Testing Report and Treatment Plan of Operations. The first report documents the conditions of the trackways and also includes materials testing and analysis results. Conservators thoroughly reviewed all available historic documentation relating to the discovery, removal, and condition of the trackways, an in-situ assessment, as well as a survey of the existing viewing building by a structural engineer. Stone cores were removed for petrographic analysis, previous repair materials were sampled for characterization, and salt identification was confirmed by X-ray diffraction.

Based on the results of testing and analysis, laboratory trials and mock-ups were performed and evaluated for the stabilization and treatment of the stone. These trials and mock-ups became the basis for the second report which is a realizable plan to implement the proposed scope of work.

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