Professor Matthew McLain from The Master’s University and students from a geology class he taught last fall discovered what they believe to be the first-ever fossil footprints found at Vasquez Rocks in Agua Dulce.   After some research, McLain and some of his students learned the prints are from some small carnivore that lived in the area millions of years ago.  “We’re still trying to nail it down exactly and see if we can get more specific than that,” McLain said during a telephone interview. “But it’s probably from a group of extinct small dog-like creatures we call Hesperocyoninae. So, imagine a little fox kind of guy running around.”  McLain is a geoscience professor at The Master’s University, the private non-denominational Christian university in Placerita Canyon. On Dec. 1 of last year, he took his “essentials of geology” class out to the Vasquez Rocks Natural Area and Nature Center, as he’s done with other classes prior and since. While there, they came upon the footprint.  “I have never seen this before,” McLain said in a video taken by student Shaylee Avis at the time of discovery. “I promise, you guys, I am not lying.”  Matthew McLain from The Master’s University and students from a Geology class he taught last fall discover what they believe to be the first-ever fossil footprints found at Vasquez Rocks in Agua Dulce. Video courtesy of Shaylee Avis McLain and his class examined the print, took measurements, pictures and video. A few of McLain’s students later took the finding on as a research project.   In September, three of McLain’s students — Maddie Flowers, Savannah Orr and Josephine Lee — presented the fossil footprint at the Geological Society of America Conference in Anaheim. Another student, Joshua Ritchey, is trying to locate other evidence of ancient life near where they found the print.  Maddie Flowers, left, and Savannah Orr show off their poster for fossil footprints discovered at Vasquez Rocks during the Geological Society of America conference on Sept. 25, 2024, in Anaheim, California. Photo courtesy of Ryan Frields. Researching the fossil footprint has offered pieces of a possible story.  “The Vasquez formation rocks are Oligocene to Miocene,” McLain said. “That’s in the Cenozoic (geological era) — so, the top of the geologic column. Most scientists would date that to the 25- to 20-million-year range. We think it’s considerably younger, coming from a different perspective — a biblical perspective. But it’s before people were in North America, for sure.”  Asked how this footprint could’ve gone unnoticed when so many people — tourists, hikers, filmmakers and others — have traversed the Vasquez Rocks so often for so long, McLain believes that weather could’ve recently exposed it.  “Basically, you can see that the track pushed into mud when it was still mud,” he said. “It’s since hardened and turned into rock. Now, this rock is a thin layer — this particular layer of mudstone — and there are layers that were on top of it. We think one of the reasons we’re guessing no one saw it before is that one of the overlying layers was eroded away. I don’t know if it’s a rainstorm or what it was.”   McLain and his class contacted the staff at Vasquez Rocks upon making the discovery, they talked to park scientists and others, and nobody could say if anyone had ever found fossil footprints like that before. McLain said he was shocked that there’s been so little scientific research done there.  But it’s so important to make these discoveries, he said.  “It’s exciting for us because we’re recognizing more about the ancient ecosystem that’s out there,” McLain said. “If you don’t have fossils, it’s hard to know what life was like in the past in California.”  Fossils, he added, give scientists glimpses of what kinds of animals used to live in the area, of ancient communities and their ecosystems. McLain takes his classes out to Vasquez Rocks to identify and better understand ancient ecosystems. That’s what they were doing out there last December when they came across the footprint.  “We were looking at some evidence that there had been mud cracks — there had been some drying up,” he said. “Well, we looked down and there’s a footprint right there. I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘I’ve been out here I don’t know how many times, and I’d never found that before.’”  The discovery has led many students to continue research at the rocks. McLain and other students are now looking to publish a research article about the footprint. Additionally, they’re planning a trip to the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont to compare their footprint with similar tracks the museum has collected.  “They’ve got a lot of fossil tracks from other parts of California and North America that we can use for comparison purposes to try and nail down exactly what name we should give these,” McLain said. “And then we’re going to try and see if we can find more of them — of other types of animals, the same types of animals.”  McLain is hopeful that more evidence of ancient life can be found at Vasquez Rocks. He’d love to see other qualified researchers go out investigating.  “As long as they don’t want to cause damage to them, great,” he said. “Go see what you can find. That’s the cool thing about science — it’s about discovery under every rock and around every corner. You just never know what you’re going to find.”  The post Geology class uncovers fossil footprints at Vasquez Rocks  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.