It’s something like a modern-day chuckwalla, side-stepping sand dunes on an island in what now is Grand Canyon National Park.

It’s something like a modern-day chuckwalla, side-stepping sand dunes on an island in what now is Grand Canyon National Park.

Footprints found in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, reveal the journey that two creatures took when they walked up the sand dunes approximately 313 million years ago. The footprints were discovered when a huge boulder fell down in the Pennsylvanian Manakacha Formation, revealing the imprinted tracks.

On a day about 313 million years ago, a four-legged animal took a stroll up the slope of a sand dune, leaving only footprints behind.

Paleontological research has confirmed a series of recently discovered fossils tracks are the oldest recorded tracks of their kind to date within Grand Canyon National Park. In 2016, Norwegian geology professor, Allan Krill, was hiking with his students when he made a surprising discovery. Lying next to the trail, in plain view of the many hikers, was a boulder containing conspicuous fossil footprints. Krill was intrigued, and he sent a photo to his colleague, Stephen Rowland, a paleontologist at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

Fossilized footprints discovered in Grand Canyon National Park were confirmed by paleontologists on Friday to be the oldest recorded tracks of their kind.

Some 313 million years ago, two creatures trekked across sand dunes in what is now the Grand Canyon and now paleontologist have uncovered evidence of their journey.

Finding fossil footprints at the Grand Canyon isn't particularly unusual. The expansive stretch of red rock is home to an array of formations containing preserved remains of the past.

Glycerol, used in the past as antifreeze for cars, is produced by a range of organisms from yeasts to vertebrates, some of which use it as an osmoprotectant—a molecule that prevents dangerous water loss in salty environments—while others use it as an antifreeze. Here, scientists from the University of Nevada and Miami University in Ohio show that two species of the single-celled green algae Chlamydomonas from Antarctica, called UWO241 and ICE-MDV, produce high levels of glycerol to protect them from osmotic water loss, and possibly also from freezing injury. Presently, only one other organism, an Arctic fish, is known to use glycerol for both purposes. Both species synthesize glycerol with enzymes encoded by multiple copies of a recently discovered ancient gene family. These results, published today in the open-access journal Frontiers in Plant Science, illustrate the importance of adaptations that allow life to not only survive but to thrive in extreme habitats.

Glycerol, used in the past as antifreeze for cars, is produced by a range of organisms from yeasts to vertebrates, some of which use it as an osmoprotectant – a molecule that prevents dangerous water loss in salty environments – while others use it as an antifreeze.

Researchers have discovered that fossil footprints found at the Grand Canyon are the oldest tracks of their kind to date in the area.

A new chapter to Grand Canyon National Park's geologic past has come to light in the unique form of two sets of fossilized tracks more than 300 million years old that are lying in view of any hiker on the Bright Angel Trail. Those tracks, according to paleontologists, "are by far the oldest vertebrate tracks in Grand Canyon."