Speed of Track-Maker
Tracks can be used to determine the speed at which the dinosaur was traveling. Various methods have been developed; the one seen here is the Alexander Method, V ~ 0.25g0.5SL1.67h-1.17 where V is velocity, g is the acceleration due to gravity, SL is the stride length, and h is the height at the hip. The average walking speed for all dinosaurs was around a few kilometers per hour. Maximum speeds have been calculated to reach sixty km/h for some species, but tracks have not been observed to have this speed. In general, bipeds were faster that quadrupeds. |