WALKING with dinosaurs could come a step closer if a daring cliff rescue comes off.

A landfall has exposed rocks embedded with the tracks of creatures of 175 million years ago on Yorkshire's own Jurassic Park.

Tomorrow, work will begin to haul the rock up the cliff face before it is claimed forever by the sea.

The rock was discovered a few weeks ago by a collector looking for fossils on the North Yorkshire coast near Whitby, one of the world's greatest sources of prehistoric remains.

But the Middle Jurassic rock is precariously balanced and in danger of falling into the sea.

Now a chainsaw will be used to cut the rock into sections so it can be transported up the cliff.

After it has been studied, it will go on display in the Yorkshire Museum, York.

The project is being carried out by English Nature, the museum, the National Trust and ICS, which has loaned the chainsaw.

An English Nature spokesman said: "Tracks can be more valuable than bones, because fossil bones have a habit of being transported many miles by rivers or predators.

"Tracks clearly nail the environments in which these ancient inhabitants of Yorkshire once lived and provide a huge amount of data on the diversity and abundance of these denizens of the Jurassic.

"The tracks will help build a more complete understanding of the animals around at this location and enable Yorkshire dinosaurs to be compared with North American cousins, who also left track signatures in the sands of time."

The coastline at Whitby was a low-lying tropical floodplain during the Middle Jurassic period.