You are certain that it is a fraud. Let's stipulate that it is not properly documented, at least as far as we know. How might that rock have been artificially created?
How about this?
"The fossil tracks that MacDonald has collected include a number of what paleontologists like to call ‘problematica.’ On one trackway, for example, a three-toed creature apparently took a few steps, then disappeared--as though it took off and flew. 'We don't know of any three-toed animals in the Permian,' MacDonald pointed out. ‘And there aren't supposed to be any birds.’ He's got several tracks where creatures appear to be walking on their hind legs, others that look almost simian. On one pair of siltstone tablets, I notice some unusually large, deep and scary-looking footprints, each with five arched toe marks, like nails. I comment that they look just like bear tracks. ‘Yeah,’ MacDonald says reluctantly, ‘they sure do.’ Mammals evolved long after the Permian period, scientists agree, yet these tracks are clearly Permian."
("Petrified Footprints: A Puzzling Parade of Permian Beasts," The Smithsonian, Vol. 23, July 1992, p.70.)
And from FreeRepublic a poster purporting to be Jerry MacDonald posted that he thinks the footprint is a fraud (because of a lack of consecutives, etc) but the poster also posted this:
[excerpt]"...A second point. And a better one. The problematica that I discovered, one of the best of which can be pictured in the Smithsonian Magazine report (July 1992). Clearly mammalian in shape, with a style of locomotion similar to a bear -- the pidgeon-toed front feet, the universally depressed tracks, the appearance of nails, not claws. And five consecutives. I call them mammal-like, and the trackmaker is mysterious."
Curiously, what the poster says in the next sentence does not seem to agree regarding the number of different kinds of 'problem' tracks as MacDonald is quoted in the Smithsonian above:
"But, There is only one trackway like this out of the thousands of tracks and trails that I have excavated. [emphasis mine] Osteologically, the vast majority (99.9 percent) of these trails match all the animals believed to have existed in the Early Permian."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1498415/posts
Cordially,
No, actually, I'm not sure it is a fraud. It is impossible to verify or debunk because it was never produced for examination. All that is available is photos taken by Don Patton, and his account of the circumstances - namely that the mean old ranchers around the site barred his reentry and wouldn't let him take the rock out:
"Access to this track is through five separate privately owned ranches. This track is about two hours from the nearest public road, at about 8,000 feet. We (Don Shocky, Dr. Baugh and myself) obtained a mining permit with a view to collecting the track for museum display. Of course, we thoroughly documented the track, by means of stereo photography, diagrams and casts. The matrix proved to be extremely hard. It wore out 13 concrete saw blades. Subsequent laboratory test indicated it was "limestone" with 30% silica.At this point the owner of the ranch adjacent to this BLM property appeared on the scene. He was very disturbed that we were removing the track and insisted that we leave. We had an official permit but he had the shotgun and won the very brief argument. His friends own the ranches through which one must pass to access the site. He and his friends have been absolutely unyielding in their determination to make sure no one comes close.
We tried, through the intercession of another friend of his, to no avail. This intercessor was able to go to the site and photograph this track and at least four others within a few hundred feet. I personally saw a photograph that he took of a right left sequence of four tracks that looked identical to the one we tried to excavate. However, his antagonistic friend made him promise not to allow the photograph to be duplicated or published. Perhaps you can imagine our frustration, but I doubt it.
A potential breakthrough has developed recently and we have reason to believe we will be allowed back on the property this year. That's all I should say at the moment. It is not time to stir up the opposition at the moment. I do believe that time will come soon.
Now something I would be very interested in, and as far as I can find has never been substantiated, is the details on the lab tests he claims were run on samples of that rock. Interestingly enough he claims that the results showed that the rock was limestone which I believe would be the aquatic portion of the shoreline where the trackways were created. Jerry MacDonald's discoveries were not in the limestone but rather in the mudstone that was the land side of the shoreline. For good reason - the tracks on the shore were preserved by successive layers of silty tidal deposits, while any underwater tracks (such as this human-like 'aquaman' print) would never survive long enough to be preserved by additional layers. But enough about the Zapata Track. On to the rest of your post....
You are quoting an often cited portion of that Smithsonian article, but I am curious if you have ever actually read the entire thing. If so, you might have missed the paragraph immediately after the one where the reporter suggests some tracks look bearlike:
MacDonald feels there must be a plausible explanation. These may be creatures whose gaits are unknown, or an animal's back feet may have obliterated its front footprints, or a running five-toed animal may have grazed the mud with only its middle three digits, then been gobbled up on the hoof, as it were. MacDonald himself believes that there were neither birds nor bears in the Permian period (although he tries to stay open-minded about such things). He suspects, however, that conventional theories about precisely who was walking around in Permian times, and how they did so, will end up being revised, perhaps extensively, once these tracks are studied in detail.
So as much as you (and whoever originated the out of context use of that article excerpt) would like to associate MacDonald with claiming that bears and birds left those trackways, it just isn't true. He simply acknowledged the reporter's comments that those tracks were reminiscent of ones made by animals we can relate to in the modern world. In other words a comparison of reference, not one of identification.
And finally, as for the posts purported to be by MacDonald himself, I cannot even begin to come up with a way to confirm if it was really him or an impostor. I would not consider any such posts to be supportive of any claim without some way of substantiating their veracity. However, I see nothing in that thread that strengthens your claim, so I'm not sure what your point is in bringing it up.