Walking to class in the footsteps of dinosaurs?

Sounds implausible but it’s an everyday occurrence in the Rogan Atrium of the Clark Center for Science and Mathematics.  Where these footprints lead is obvious, but a touch of mystery surrounds where they came from.

With some—er—digging, the complete story surfaced.

During planning for the 2008 Clark Science Center renovations, science faculty member Scott MacClintic ’82 suggested that the school’s collection of fossilized dinosaur footprints be moved into the Rogan Atrium. Ted Cutler, project architect from the Hartford firm Tecton, designed a lighted, glass-covered pit built into the atrium’s floor to house the large piece of sandstone bearing the fossils. Mr. Cutler created a visual trope with 27 intaglio footprints, sculpted into the atrium’s ceramic floor tiles, leading to and from the covered display and spaced to approximate the dinosaur’s stride.  

This stride belonged to a two-legged, three-toed dinosaur measuring almost 20 feet long. It—and probably thousands of others similar to it—roamed the then marshy, tropical Connecticut River Valley during the early Jurassic period, about 200 million years ago. These creatures left behind footprints, characterized by three toes terminating in a distinct claw, and thanks to the geological changes that occurred over time, these tracks eventually fossilized.  First unearthed in 1802, this type of fossil was named Eubrontes giganteus in 1845 by Amherst College Professor Edward Hitchcock.  The dinosaurs that made these tracks up and down the valley are yet to be identified, and skeletal remains of these creatures remain elusive to paleontologists. Most of what we know of them is based on their distinctive footprints.

Fast forward to 1966. Workers on a highway project in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, unearthed a large group of Eubrontes tracks. Construction immediately halted—more than 2,000 fossils were eventually found at the location—and the site became so popular with the public that the state police stepped in for what they referred to as round-the-clock “Dinoduty” to prevent unauthorized digging by amateur fossil hunters. Even the Washington Post reported on the find, headlining its coverage, “Dinosaurs Get Right of Way.” Researchers from Yale and the University of Connecticut studied the site, and two years later Dinosaur State Park opened, preserving in situ nearly 600 Eubrontes tracks.

The State of Connecticut found itself in the unusual position of having too many fossilized dinosaur footprints and offered those found in Rocky Hill—but outside the park’s display—to any institution or town in the state. About a decade later, Loomis Chaffee science teacher, John Klimenok, heard of the surplus and arranged for the school to acquire a group of Eubrontes giganteus in 1979. The Town of Windsor and the school joined efforts to transport the two-ton stone slab to campus, and the school installed it just outside the east entrance of Clark, fulfilling the state’s requirements that the fossils be labelled with proper identification and be kept in a covered shelter, two features continued in the Rogan Atrium display.

David Wild ’80 introduced Loomis Chaffee to the fossils in his January 20, 1979 Log article. “In these days of tightening admission policy, an unusual addition to our school community has been made. This addition is 200 million years old and hails from Rocky Hill, Connecticut.” David quipped, “No, Loomis Chaffee hasn’t found the ultimate Post Graduate.”