This site is the result of a Franco-Swiss collaboration between the Jura department in France and the Canton of Jura in Switzerland. The project “On the trails of the Jurassic dinosaurs in the Jura massif” is supported by the European Union and the Swiss Confederation in the framework of the IIIA programme.

A project on a European scale to promote the recent discoveries in the Jura Arc.

Since 2002, both in Switzerland and in France, a new impetus has been given to the Jura palaeontology due to roadworks.
In the Swiss Canton of the Jura, the construction of the A16 motorway has lead to the discovery of remarkable deposits of dinosaur tracks and a rich fauna of vertebrates (fish, tortoises, crocodiles and pterosaurs), of invertebrates (corals, molluscs and sea urchins) and plants at Courtedoux, near to Porrentruy. They date from the Jurassic period. In the French Jura department, the widening of a road in 2004 unearthed the Coisia site of dinosaur tracks before the floor of the Loulle quarry at the start of 2006 revealed a rich site of dinosaur tracks. However these three deposits, all dated from the Jurassic period, are separated from each other by several million years; in fact they are spread out between approximately -155 and -148 million years!

These Jurassic deposits of international standing, backed up by discoveries from more recent periods, allow scientists to piece together the history of the landscapes and climates as well as the evolution of the biodiversity during the past 200 million years. They show us the existence of ancient environments, from the Jurassic tropical beaches edged with coral reefs to the landscapes of Quaternary periglacial valleys.