Lost world with a 280-million-year-old ecosystem discovered by hiker

Fossils accidentally discovered by a woman hiking in the Italian Alps paint a picture of a bygone ecosystem that may have looked like the above illustration by Fabio Manucci

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A 280 million-year-old lost world was accidentally discovered by a woman while hiking in the Italian Alps.

Claudia Steffensen and her husband were trekking along a trail in the Valtellina Orobie Mountains Park in Lombardy in 2023 when she spotted a light gray rock covered in 'strange designs.'

When she looked closer, she realized the designs were actually animal tracks.

Steffensen sent photos to a research team who determined the footprints belonged to a prehistoric reptile that roamed the Earth during the Permian period, the age immediately before dinosaurs.

Further investigation of the region led paleontologists to hundreds of other fossilized footprints left behind by at least five species of ancient reptiles, amphibians and insects.

Though these animals predated the dinosaurs, some had to have been of considerable size, perhaps between six and 12 feet long, researchers said in a statement.

The team also uncovered imprints of plant fossils - including traces of seeds, leaves and stems - along with imprints of raindrops and waves on the shores of a prehistoric lake.

Co-researcher and trace fossils specialist Lorenzo Marchetti of the Museum of Natural History in Berlin said the prints were preserved in 'impressive' detail, even down to 'the imprints of fingernails and the belly skin of some animals.

The fine detail and remarkable preservation of these fossils is owed to their past proximity to water, the researchers explained.

The ancient ecosystem, found at altitudes as high as 10,000 feet and at the bottom of valleys, was preserved in fine-grained sandstone.

Paleontologists also identified claw marks and patterns from the underbellies of animals.

'The footprints were made when these sandstones and shales were still sand and mud soaked in water at margins of rivers and lakes, which periodically, according to the seasons, dried up,' co-researcher and paleontologist Ausonio Ronchi of the University of Pavia said in the statement.

'The summer sun, drying out those surfaces, hardened them to the point that the return of new water did not erase the footprints but, on the contrary, covered them with new clay, forming a protective layer,' Ronchi added.

The Permian period lasted from 299 million to 252 million years ago.

During this time, the global climate rapidly warmed, ultimately leading to a mass-extinction event that marked the end of this period and killed 90 percent of Earth's species.

Ironically, modern-day global warming made the discovery of this ancient alpine ecosystem possible, as the fossils were hidden under layers of snow that have melted away as Earth's climate has warmed.

'The discovery in the Ambria valley is also an effect of climate change,' Doriano Codega, president of the Valtellina Orobie nature park, told The Guardian.

'The exceptional thing was the altitude - these relics were found at very high levels and were very well preserved. This is an area subjected to landslides, so there were also rock detachments that brought to light these fossils.'

Since 1850, human-driven climate change has caused glaciers in the Alps to lose between 30 and 40 percent of their surface area and half of their volume, with an additional 10 to 20 percent lost since 1980, according to CREA Mont-Blanc: Research Center for Alpine Ecosystems.

The discovery of these fossils offers a window into an ancient ecosystem decimated by extreme global temperature rise. In this way, it also serves as a reminder of what's at stake as anthropogenic warming nears catastrophic levels.

'These fossils … testify to a distant geological period, but with a global warming trend completely similar to that of today,' the researchers said.

'The past has a lot to teach us about what we risk getting the world into now.'