Apparent human shoe prints were found in a slab with obvious trilobite
fossils in 1968, by William J. Meister, at Antelope Springs, forty-three
miles northwest of Delta, Utah. The heel of one print was worn just as
shoe heels wear today.
The trilobites are real (Elrathia kingii), but the "sandal print" is
a spall pattern. The heel of the Meister print is not worn down but
is caused by a long crack running across the rock. It lacks the
diagnostic features that a real sandal print has. There are many other
weathering features in the area identical in character to the so-called
sandal prints but in a variety of shapes. They do not occur in a
trail but as isolated prints (Conrad 1981).
Geochemical processes, such as solution penetrations, spalling, and
other weathering, have been well documented to produce such features on
the shales of the Wheeler Formation, where the prints were found
(Stokes 1986).
