Editing Trace fossil (section)

=== Paleoenvironment ===
[[Image:Eubrontes01.JPG|thumb|upright|''[[Eubrontes]]'', a [[dinosaur]] footprint in the Lower [[Jurassic]] [[Moenave Formation]] at the [[St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site]] at Johnson Farm, southwestern [[Utah]]]]
Fossil footprints made by tetrapod [[vertebrate]]s are difficult to identify to a particular species of animal, but they can provide valuable information such as the speed, weight, and behavior of the organism that made them. Such trace fossils are formed when [[amphibian]]s, [[reptile]]s, [[mammal]]s, or [[bird]]s walked across soft (probably wet) mud or sand which later hardened sufficiently to retain the impressions before the next layer of sediment was deposited. Some fossils can even provide details of how wet the sand was when they were being produced, and hence allow estimation of paleo-wind directions.<ref name=Trewin1995>{{cite journal
 | author = Trewin, N.H.
 |author2=McNamara, K.J.
  | year = 1995
 | title = Arthropods invade the land: trace fossils and palaeoenvironments of the Tumblagooda Sandstone (? late Silurian) of Kalbarri, Western Australia
 | journal = Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences
 | volume = 85
 |issue=3
  | pages = 177–210
 | doi=10.1017/s026359330000359x
|s2cid=129036273
 }}</ref>

Assemblages of trace fossils occur at certain water depths,<ref name=Seilacher1967 /> and can also reflect the salinity and turbidity of the water column.