And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Genesis 7:19
"The newly-discovered fossilized footprints were made by at least
two mammalian species around 58 million years ago in a brackish water in what is now southern Wyoming, the United States, and may
represent the earliest evidence of mammals gathering by the sea.
Dr. Wroblewski and his colleague, Dr. Bonnie Gulas-Wroblewski, photographed
several sets of fossilized footprints in the Hanna Formation in southern Wyoming.
by a
minimum of two mammalian species: one associated with relatively large,
narrow-gauge, five-toed tracks, and the other with medium-sized,
four-toed tracks. Fossilized plants and pollen helped the team determine the age of the
tracks... Before this finding, the earliest known evidence of mammals interacting with marine environments came from the Eocene epoch.....a pair of tracks consisting of a large (average = 17.5 cm wide × 14.8 cm
long) and a 70% smaller (average = 12 cm wide × 11 cm long) set of
prints, walking in tandem to the southeast (105° bearing) might
represent an adult and juvenile. 
Example of wide gauge trackway and candidate track maker. (a) Walk cycle of Coryphodon inferred from trackway (b) Photograph of trackway from which a is modeled (view to the northeast).
The tracks include underprints, impressions in soft sediment made when heavy animals walk on overlying sediment layers, as well as prints pressed into the surfaces of ancient tidal flats. Some tracks penetrate beds populated by dwelling traces of marine bivalves and polychaetes in the upper layers and sea anemones at the base.
Now preserved in sandstone, they are 1,032 m long and were made
The morphology and stable isotope chemistry of Coryphodon indicate that this pantodont exhibited semiaquatic habits analogous to those of extant common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius).
Polychaete and bivalve burrows (Skolithos and Siphonichnus,
respectively) are distributed across the surface of this bed,
indicating continuation of marine conditions after deposition of the
sediment. The trackways demonstrate shallow, tidally influenced, brackish-water
habitat use by at least two mammalian taxa during the late Paleocene, an interaction with marine environments previously unknown
prior to the Eocene on the basis of body fossils." nature
Example of wide gauge trackway and candidate track maker. (a) Walk cycle of Coryphodon inferred from trackway (b) Photograph of trackway from which a is modeled (view to the northeast).
