Qualla: Cal Orck'o: Where 68 Million Years Walked Uphill https://qualla.com/cal-orck-o en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Cal Orck'o: Where 68 Million Years Walked Uphill https://qualla.com/cal-orck-o Cal Orck'o: Where 68 Million Years Walked Uphill: Introduction https://qualla.com/cal-orck-o/ Sixty-eight million years ago, this was a lakeshore. Theropods stalked the muddy banks. Sauropods lumbered along the water's edge, their massive feet sinking deep into soft sediment. Ankylosaurs plodded through on shorter legs, leaving their distinctive four-toed prints. Then the mud dried, hardened, and was buried under new layers of sediment - and the memory of those passing animals was sealed in stone. Millions of years later, the Andes began to rise, and the flat lakebed tilted. What had been horizontal became nearly vertical: a 300-foot-high limestone cliff face outside the Bolivian city of Sucre, bearing over 12,000 individual dinosaur tracks. Cal Orck'o - Quechua for "lime hill" - is the largest dinosaur tracksite on Earth.

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]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/s/9/e/cal-orck-o-wp/6s9e-cal-orcko-where-68-million-years-walked-uphill-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Cal Orck'o: Where 68 Million Years Walked Uphill: Discovered by Dynamite https://qualla.com/cal-orck-o/ The tracks owe their discovery to the cement industry. In 1994, workers quarrying limestone for FANCESA - Fabrica Nacional de Cemento S.A. - blasted into the cliff face and exposed the first footprints. The quarrying that revealed the tracks also threatened them, but the site's e...

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]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/s/9/e/cal-orck-o-wp/6s9e-cal-orcko-where-68-million-years-walked-uphill-discovered-by-dynamite.mp3 0:06 2 full Cal Orck'o: Where 68 Million Years Walked Uphill: The Physics of Preservation https://qualla.com/cal-orck-o/ How do footprints survive 68 million years? At Cal Orck'o, the answer involves a specific sequence of conditions. The lakeshore's oolitic fossiliferous limestone provided a surface firm enough to hold shape but soft enough to take deep impressions. Alternating wet and dry weather...

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]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/s/9/e/cal-orck-o-wp/6s9e-cal-orcko-where-68-million-years-walked-uphill-the-physics-of-preservation.mp3 0:06 3 full Cal Orck'o: Where 68 Million Years Walked Uphill: A Gallery of Cretaceous Life https://qualla.com/cal-orck-o/ The trackways at Cal Orck'o read like a census of Late Cretaceous fauna. Theropod prints show the sharp, three-toed pattern of bipedal predators - animals that walked on two legs and likely hunted along the lakeshore. Ornithopod tracks, blunt-toed and broader, belonged to herbivo...

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]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/s/9/e/cal-orck-o-wp/6s9e-cal-orcko-where-68-million-years-walked-uphill-a-gallery-of-cretaceous-life.mp3 0:06 4 full Cal Orck'o: Where 68 Million Years Walked Uphill: Monument and Museum https://qualla.com/cal-orck-o/ Cal Orck'o was declared a National Monument in 1998, four years after its discovery. The FANCESA Paleontological Reserve now protects the site, and Parque Cretacico - the Cretaceous Park - offers guided tours, educational exhibits, and close-up views of track sections that would ...

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]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/s/9/e/cal-orck-o-wp/6s9e-cal-orcko-where-68-million-years-walked-uphill-monument-and-museum.mp3 0:06 5 full