THEY are more used to saving people from the perils of the sea - but rescuers were yesterday celebrating an extraordinary operation which saw them preserve vital evidence of the time when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

Working by torchlight in the dead of night, fossil experts teamed up with trained lifesavers to haul a slab of rock containing three dinosaur footprints away from the ravages of the North Sea.

And the rock, now on public display, is to be inspected by the country's leading academics in an effort to determine which giant creature stalked the region some 170 million years ago.

The late night mission was carried out just north of Scarborough, North Yorkshire, by six members of the coastguard's life rescue team and the Yorkshire Coast Dinosaur Project.

In scenes almost identical to the rescue of an injured person on the beach, the chunk of rock was wrapped in a sleeping bag, tied to a stretcher and taken one-and-a-half miles along the boulder-strewn sand and up the cliff to safety.

The footprints are believed to be those of a relative of the colossal Iguanodon, one of the first discovered dinosaurs, which was about nine metres long and weighed up to four-and-a-half tonnes.

Project officer Alastair Bowden said the crucial slab of rock had fallen from the cliff face and onto the beach about three weeks ago.

"It was about three or four miles north of Scarborough, at a place called Jackson's Bay, which is famed for its dinosaur footprints," he said.

"It was a tricky operation because it was impossible to get any rhythm going. Somebody always had to be clambering over a boulder at any one time.

"It took about two hours and was pitch black - we were doing it only by moonlight and torchlight."

He said experts from the University of Sheffield were due to examine the rock - now on display at Wood End Museum, in Scarborough - in the near future.

Mr Bowden added: "There are three footprints which are very clear and quite large as well, at about 20cm long."

The operation was part of a series of events marking the international importance of the Yorkshire dinosaur coast, which has some of the world's best Jurassic rock exposures.

Updated : 15:20, Wed. 29th Aug.