What makes Carreras Pampa legendary isn’t just the number of tracks but what preserved them all in place. The lakebed was a Goldilocks zone of soft-but-sturdy carbonate-rich mud filled with tiny calcium carbonate grains and ostracod shells.

That sediment created the perfect firmness for dinosaurs to leave detailed, long-lasting impressions. Once covered by fresh sediment, those footprints were locked in place for millions of years, as sturdy and resilient as our modern-day cement sidewalks.

The site was such a perfect spot for capturing imprints that it captured more than just footprints. Any part of a dinosaur that touched the ground left a permanent mark. Claw drags and tail trails can be found throughout as well.

Researchers identified 11 types of tracks in total, some of which were so well preserved and so vividly detailed that they could identify the kind of action the dinosaur was performing when it left that mark. For instance, the researchers found evidence of a dinosaur making a sharp turn as it walked along the sediment.

Torotoro is now one of the best places on earth to catch a glimpse into dinosaur behavior, and all it took to provide us with this look into the ancient past wasn’t some fanciful sci-fi tech. All it took was the right kind of mud.