In its beginning, the story starts with an everyday occurrence. Two boys were tubing down Flatbed Creek in the summer of 2000, somewhere close to Tumbler Ridge, in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. At one point, while floating along the water, the boys noticed strange footprints that were imprinted deeply within the stones around them. To a bystander, such marks may be considered as just another example of a scratch made by a stone or water erosion during the years of existence of that part of the landscape. However, the boys showed the find to Daniel’s father, and it was later confirmed by palaeontologist Richard McCrea what had been noticed, and that single minute led them on a path towards uncovering the mysteries of ancient times.What they discovered was a collection of prehistoric tracks, which later caught the attention of scientists worldwide. The quick notice of the two boys turned out to be a key to unlocking the secrets hidden deep within the rocks for millions of years.Why were the marks not just scratchesOne may question how one can tell whether a child's observation is a simple scratch or a real fossil imprint. One thing that sets the marks apart is that the prints made by dinosaurs are distinctively structured. There is no way they may be simply a result of any irregularity of the bedrock; a real footprint always shows consistency in the structure of imprints, their alignment and even their depth corresponding to how the animals walked across soft ground.Based on the article that appeared in the PLOS ONE journal, one may see that dinosaur footprints are preserved in the Tumbler Ridge formation in situ. Indeed, this area is famous for its dinosaur tracks left in the rock itself. In scientific literature, one finds references to actual dinosaur trackways described in very specific details. It means that such footprints were discovered and are present in this area of British Columbia in their entirety, without having been relocated or damaged. A child’s eye sees what a scientist’s tests revealIn terms of the specific dinosaur species, the two boys did not have to be certain of anything with any kind of scientific precision. All that mattered at the point of first contact was the realisation that there was something strange and unique going on in these patterns and that this phenomenon had to be communicated to other individuals. In palaeontology, an ordinary passer-by will often find the primary evidence of fossils far ahead of their scientific description.When scientists started comparing the foot patterns with other rocks in the province, things began to fall together as one big picture. In a more recent study on the provincial geology that appeared in the PLOS ONE journal, researchers noted that the area belonged to a wider footprint-bearing belt in northeastern British Columbia. To be more precise, this study underlined the specific importance of the local Wapiti Formation that contained traces left by dinosaurs in a distinctive Cretaceous environment. This meant that the dinosaurs left the tracks as they stepped on wet ground along the margins of coasts in the process of moving through these areas.Fossil paradise emerges in Tumbler RidgeCurrently, Tumbler Ridge is inextricably connected with palaeontology on an international scale. One may view the findings made in 2000 in the creek as a catalyst that drew scientific attention to the area. Nevertheless, the scientists insist that this location attracted notice not due to chance but because the layers of rocks found there contain footprints of excellent quality detectable by modern people.It is one more bright example of a connection between the events in a human life and events taking place in the planet's history thousands and millions of years ago. Indeed, what began as tubing ended up with a fascinating find.