LISBON Prehistoric tracks used by dinosaurs and found in rock layers in central Portugal four years ago are being turned into a tourist draw for Lisbon's hosting of Expo '98. Inaugurating the site three days before the start of the five-month world fair, Environment Minister Elisa Ferreira told a group of schoolchildren: There have been other expos, but almost none with dinosaur footprints.

The Mesozoic-era pathways, dating back more than 170 million years the middle of the Jurassic age were found in a limestone quarry near Fatima in central Portugal in 1994. Two of the them are more than 140 meters long, the largest found in the world. In the tracks can be seen footprints of up to a meter long, proof of the passage of sauropods, four-legged herbivorous dinosaurs which grew up to 30 meters long and weighed dozens of tons.

After long negotiations with the owner, the government paid #3 million to stop the quarry being used and work is underway to turn it into a museum. Since opening the site to the public in March last year, some 40,000 people have already filed through. But now the government hopes to tap the estimated 8.5 million tourists who will attend the expo, luring them out to the excavations to see proof of the prehistoric creatures which once lived there.

The director of Lisbon's Natural History Museum, Galopim de Carvalho, said the fossilized footprints pushes the earliest known sign of the sauropods back by 25 to 30 million years. (AFP)