It has always bothered me the way sasquatch tracks, like Patty’s, that seem deep (read: were made by a heavy animal), seem actually too deep, as in: a lower weight human (but with smaller feet) sinks in only slightly in comparison, (in fact, it is often cited, can’t penetrate as deeply as the sasquatch track even by stomping or jumping down hard).

It seems like kind of violation of basic biomechanics, that any animal would be so heavy it sinks into the ground so much more than a similar animal – humans, in this case. Because the whole point is that our feet are big enough to accommodate our size. It just isn’t efficient for an animal to be punching its feet into the ground, so feet evolve to be large enough to prevent it.

When you jump or stomp down on the ground I think the pressure exerted, the pounds per square inch, far exceeds (at least more than double) the pressures of normal walking. So why, given that the lower weight of humans is spread over less surface area (smaller feet), is it difficult to produce impressions similar to sasquatch tracks? It doesn’t make sense to me.

The apparent lack of the "snowshoe effect" in reported sasquatch tracks puzzles quite a few. We have to ask ourselves though, "Why do we believe that sasquatch make deeper-than-normal tracks?" The fact is, due to a lack of documentation, there is no evidence to support that they do. In track reports that mention the sasquatch tracks as being extremely deep, do we have all of the facts? Do we know the type of soil the tracks were in? What about the surrounding soil? The condition of the soil at the time the tracks were made? What methods were employed by the investigator in order to determine the depth of the tracks? What tools were used for measurement? This is without even going into possible misidentifications or hoaxes.

There just isn't enough evidence to support the idea that sasquatch make deeper tracks than what should be expected.

Interesting question.

Here's one of John Green's photographs showing a depth comparison. Do I know for sure that it's a legit track? No. But I believe Mr. Green thought so. If you look to the left of the photograph you can just make out the boot print. Who knows? Maybe the soil was just that much softer a foot away. It would be nice to be able to see a trackway comparison versus just a single print.

I would argue that the whole "bigfoot tracks are deep" perception comes from the collective bias bigfooters have had for finding indications of a great big beast. Tracks just shouldn’t be dramatically deeper and when they seem to be, instead of great weight being the reason, I’d guess the reasons tend to be: gait (striding out produces deeper tracks), bare feet make deeper tracks than boots (the usual comparison), differing conditions (the ground was softer when the creature past).

Bob Titmus’ observations on the tracks are excellent but his comments about his brother-in-law’s own tracks being shallow in comparison (several days later), have little bearing, IMO.

A few months ago Tube conducted and posted experiments with large flexible fake feet that described how such feet dig in and make a much deeper impression than a shod or barefoot human foot does. Therefore, deep tracks made in soft substrate could be flexible fake feet, but the ones made in hard substrate could be a Bigfoot's, because of their mid-tarsal break.

(I'm going by memory--correct me if I'm wrong.)

Just my opinion....

Where I hunt, and anywhere there is alot of clay in the soil for that matter, a moose, deer or even human will leave a considerably deeper track with just a little moisture in the soil.

Many times I have seen very deep tracks then just a few hours later in the afternoon when the sun has dried out the soil I am unable to leave any track.

The powdered clay type soils I am talking about take very little time to dry out and go from gumbo to concrete in just a few hours.

Same with Georgia red clay. Deep morning tracks can be replaced by faint impressions with just a few hours of sunlight.

What I think were footsteps of a sasquatch sounded like a car tire on the road. That makes me believe the foot is very flexible and it doesn't set the entire foot down at one time. It might roll more than a human as the weight is shifted. That would make a deeper print and also account for the sound I heard.

I'm very happy to see this thread. I though about starting a similar one last year but was never able to fully articulate where I wanted it to go. The same holds true now. I recall being inspired or intrigued or perhaps just befuddled after reading Daegling's arguments about the basic physics of track depth and why the PG observations don't seem to hold much water. We all should read that again to refresh ourselves if we haven't already done so.

I agree that there must be a huge (and poorly thought out) element of people seeing what they want to see in reporting extremely deep tracks, even though they should perhaps be (or are) less deep because of weight per square inch, etc. I also think there is a strong influence of hoaxing wherein there is surely an inclination to make the tracks very obvious. I'm betting the Wildman is exactly correct and there are virtually no cases of well documented tracks, soil conditionss, depths, comparitive depths, etc. in which we could really tackle this question.

So I guess the bottomline for me is to start as skeptical as possible and question whether or not ANY estimate or measure of track depth is valid in the first place. The PG example would seem to be the best in the, if we beleive the story, they saw the tracks being made and they were as fresh as possible- changing conditions should be a relatviely insignificant factor. So were the figure's tracks really extra deep and if so, why? As Roger pointed out, the best case for the moment is that they were fake according to what Tube has shown with his fake feet. But clearly there is more to the physics of foot tracks than the simply vertical mass based equation?

I'll stop rambling and start thikning more...

Apeman

it has been touched on but the answer is that the feet aren't used like snow shoes where the weight is spread out over the whole foot. the weight is first on the heels then transfers to the b*lls then toes. this allows for deeper tracks. if the feet were being used like snow shoes the tracks would still be deeper than humans but not as deep as they are. also understand that snow shoes are larger than the foot for a reason. if a sas foot was 2 to 3 times larger we would see much lighter sign than normally is seen. thus the reason tracks are lighter or non existent on spongy undergrowth or where lots of dead drop as it acts like a snow shoe spreading out the weight.

What I think tube has shown is that a foot that is very pliable will avoid the "snowshoe effect" and instead actually "dig in" deeper that what Daegling allowed for a flat, rigid foot like a human's. A fake plastic foot can do this digging in, but so could a Bigfoot foot, given the flexibility seen in the PGF in certain frames, and given the mid-tarsal break inferred from certain footprints.

I wrote any article that was published in the March issue of Bigfoot Times, "Who'd Fake a Forgettable Footprint," which argued that the most authentic footprints (collectively) are the least convincing ones (individually). This is because "a hoaxer [craving attention] wouldn’t plant faint, fuzzy or fragmented prints at a site. (Aside perhaps from a few as substantiating elements or accidentals at a full-track site.)"

I was most certainly getting the "snowshow" effect if I got close to the water's edge where the sand was more compacted.

I think simply increasing stride length naturally digs one's foot more deeply in to the substrate. I'll have to try that without fake feet the next time I'm at the beach.

And therein lies the problem (or one of them) - this isn't what we see Patty doing - she seems to be placing her feet flat on the ground.

Think incremental loading/unloading. From strictly an engineering standpoint, all the various opinions that have been offered up in print, by both the proponents and skeptics alike on: depth of impression vs. mass of track maker/ methods of fakery are seriously flawed IMO. All of those that have taken the time to put their opinions to paper on this subject have all been guilty of attempting to reduce the great depth of alleged sasquatch tracks and the resultant force vectors that created the tracks to a simple linear algebraic relationship. They simply treat the the sasquatch foot(or similar fake) as a static load bearing column with known area of support equal to the surface area of the impression and the load supported equal to the mass of the track maker. This is not a valid comparision and it overlooks many factors. Soil is a dynamic medium that performs predictably under static loading conditions but no so much so under dynamic conditions where force vectors are not only changing in magnitude but potentially direction as well. An imprint( be it the impression left by a living foot or similar fake) is a fairly complex thing. Soil doesn't discriminate how it's deformed. Nor does it always behave plastically in respect to deformation(i.e. Total resultant Load A supported by surface area B results in measured dry density compression C. Doubling load A or halfing surface area B is not likely going to result in a doubling of compression C). We talked about the whole depth of impression subject in much greater detail here:

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=14342&st=60
Questions About Dr. Meldrum's Foot Reconstruct - Bigfoot Forums

The only thing I'd be willing to conclude with any degree of certainty about the depth of alleged sasquatch tracks in relation to what has been written by those that have offered up opinions on the subject( Green, Farenbach, Krantz, Daegling et al) is:

1- None of the conclusions they've all drawn about the mass/force neccesary to cause the resultant impressions is likely in the ballpark when you consider the dynamics involved.

2- If any of the deeper purported sasquatch tracks are real, the animals that left them didn't need to be anywhere near as massive as was concluded.

3- The great depth of impression does nothing to support or refute theories of what conclusively created the impressions.

Your hand is more flexible than your foot. If you pretend your hand is a foot and act like you are taking a step on a table top, you can make it roll and feel the pressure wave move forward. It is more effective if you dorsiflex (sp) your hand as much as possible but a sasquatch foot may be more even and rounded than your hand. I don't think it It would be possible to see it on the film and I haven't seen anything in the Patterson film to make me doubt this is probable. There is an example of possible dorsiflexing seen in one shot as Patty raises her toes. That would seem to add some weight to the idea if you accept that her toes are indeed being lifted up before she steps down.

A couple of thoughts
1) the deeper the print, the greater the chance it will even be noticed. Fairly hard ground would mean a print that was on instead of in it. Little chance for it to be noticed. It would be the more dramatic prints that would stand out. So... out of hundreds or thousands of prints, it is the couple where a Sasquatch crosses a mudpuddle that get noticed (and have plaster poured into them). The vast percentage of ground that is easily "hard enough" to handle a bigfoot's weight... it doesn't leave much of a track so, the tracks we have are mainly from softer ground where a foot leaves a really substantial impression.

2) sinking into the ground an inch or two on occasion isn't an real evolutionary disadvantage. Put a human on soft enough ground (IE, the mucky bottom of the trench I was helping to dig out last week) and we sink pretty good ourselves... but we are so seldom in those conditions that evolution doesn't cull out those with small foot-to-bodysize ratios. From everything I've read, I don't really see a Bigfoot as being hindered because its feet sunk into a sandbar a few inches as it was cross it.

3) Something is making tracks. I have yet to hear anyone talking that tracks are being "carved" into the ground by someone a with spoon and too much time. The only mechanism that I've heard anyone bring forth is that a "foot" (real or carved fake) was pressed into the ground by putting a weight (IE, a hoaxer or a real Bigfoot) ontop of it until it sank into the ground. I have less trouble with a track being deeper than I expect rather than shallower. Deeper means someone/something is heavier than I anticipate. Faking a track too deep means that someone has gone to the effort of carrying potentially hundreds of extra unnecessary pounds while faking a track....I might buy some dedicated hoaxer lumbering through the woods with a 100lbs bag of concrete on their back to drive their wooden feet deeper...but I really have difficulty visualizing someone doing that with two bags.

4) There are a lot of unbounded variables in place here. I can believe that the hardness of an area of ground is not uniform. That it may change with differeing water/sunlight conditions. A Sasquatch may cross a sandbar early in the morning after a rainstorm and leave a track. Someone comes along a 6-7 hours later and jump on dried sand (layered over a unseen rock) and have trouble leaving a track....

Hmmmm. that might actually be a fun experiment. Build at "trackway" that is a stretch of sand in a controllable enviroment. Compare the tracks of a small child (5-6 years old) to those generated by a big adult man (who'd be 4-5 times the child's weight). Vary the water content of the sand. Mix in some leaves and other material to more closely duplicate what a real sandbar is like.... It might give some basis to understanding just what is really possible. Anyone know the folks at MythBusters :-)

Just for fun, I measured my own foot and multiplied length x width then divided my weight by that result.......4.5#/sq. in.

Then estimated BF foot at 18"x9"=162 sq. in.
800#/162=4.9#/sq. in.

Of course this isn't the actual weight on my foot, since I'm using a rectangle based on my foot length x width. But doing the same with a typical BF it makes a fair comparison, I think.

This, of course means not much, since weight of a BF is only a guess, but, I think, this is a reasonable estimate based on reports I've seen.

Conclusion: All else being equal, the track depth should be similar between myself and a BF with the size foot and weight used. I think that is a given as I read these posts.

But then all else is not equal....ever, unless in controlled conditions as also pointed out above.

To make the pressure on a single foot the same as mine, a BF with that size foot, would have to weigh 730#

Worthless information maybe, but I found it interesting.

Foot size certainly goes up as body size does; it takes a bigger foot to support a bigger body. That correlation must be due to the necessity to spread out the weight load, for balance and to keep from sinking in too far, which, I’m sure, is a matter of walking efficiency. Sinking in too far wastes energy.

Sure, a sasquatch foot would contact the ground unevenly – heal first, whatever. But the same can be said for humans; we don’t step forward by placing our feet flatly down either. So, IMO, judging the depth of sasquatch tracks relative to ours is valid, except, when the human is shod, walking differently than the sasquatch, and not making tracks at nearly the same time (and place, of course) as the sasquatch did – which is about impossible.

I’m bothered by what I see as a preoccupation with sasquatch track depth – they’re deep! So there’s a reward offered to anyone who can make convincing fake sasquatch tracks (they gotta be deep!), and a lot of people in this forum are speculating about Patty’s tracks, how they had to be produced as an independent fake job if she was fake (because they’re so deep) – hoax scenarios that would accommodate separately faked tracks, and so on. It all seems to be based on the fact that her tracks were pretty deep, (as we know sasquatch track should be – since they’re so heavy).

I say, No. I’ll bet sasquatch tracks are no deeper than a human’s. And I’ll bet Patty’s were deep (and made by the Patty you see in the film as she walks in the film), only because she is striding out, and shoe-less, and the ground was softer when she strode upon it.

I agree with OnlyASize12 #1, If I seen any tracks I would look for the best out of the bunch, probably the deeper ones. Ones on hard ground may not even be noticed or hard to tell what made and ignored. If it rained and the print was made and three or fours days latter its found, now the ground is probably harder. Just a thought....

Geez, some people make some prints in some places. Patty was flat footed? Even if it was faked, anything that is on two feet step heel footed (if it has a heel). It's all about the ground. Perhaps the substrate was only 2 inches deep. The heel hits, driving in 2 inches, and the rest of the weight follows, and the body rocks forward, pushing the rest of the weight on the ball and toes 2 inches deep. Was the ground equal hardness? Was the ground flat? The samples they took were probably from the easist places to pour plaster. Just like every other casting. Trying to analyze something like this is like trying to figure out how a certain cloud will react and exist in 3 days time. Clouds change, the ground changes, due to rain, dryness, day and night.

The general reasoning is that sasquatch is flat footed, due to the weight of the body on the feet with no arch support. The heel hits, then the foot hits taking the rest of the body weight, while toes make minor corrections to balance. So why are there no deep footprints? Cause there's no defination, 2D flat picture we're used to seeing. Feet are dynamic, and move to react to ground changes. If we see a 4" deep hole with a 2" gouged area 16 inches after it, would we see it as a footprint? Probably not. We are looking for 2D flat footprints, which are what we saw in the 'classic' photos. Good luck finding those in nature, which is chaotic in nature, naturally.

Yes but surface area increases as a square function of relative size while mass increases as a cubic function.




I'm probably not going to be able to convince you otherwise, but I'll try it again: You simply cannot look at the resolution of force vectors along something like the sasquatch foot as a simple linear algebraic function under static loading conditions. There are simply no circumstances that a model based on these assumptions is going to mimic reality. You really can't even safely make this assumption for a walking human.

I don't know a thing about biomechanics but I'm agreeing with Krantz and Meldrum that the sasquatch foot by inherent design would have to be more flexible than the human condition. The human foot is rather inflexible from the heel to the arch. The rigidity is maintained by bone and connective tissue whose strength is proportional to x-sectional surface area. Mass increases as volume(cubic function). At some point as mass reaches a critical threshold, the human foot design is going to fail. If the sasquatch is real, it had to evolve a foot design that is consistant with not ripping itself apart under the stresses it imparts to the foot under locomotion. A lot of people talk about what they perceive to be the "load averaging" characterisitic of the sasquatch foot because the prints are relatively flat. I think this is somewhat of a misconception, and the relative flatness is actually more of a function of the substrate being pushed to it's compression limits. I'd argue that the human foot has more of a "load averaging" ability than the sasquatch foot would simply because in all probability, it's more rigid. Thus, under locomotion, the force vectors resolved by a walking human would be applied to greater increments of area during the periodic loading/unloading process of locomotion in relation to total foot surface area. The sasquatch foot by it's very nature would have to load/unload more incrementally. I don't think it necessarily hits the ground much different than the human foot, but that the load would be applied much more incrementally, relative to total foot area. A print is the recorded total interaction with how something deformed the substrate. Soil does not discriminate on how it was deformed be it statically by mass and gravity over a constant unchanging area of support or dynamically by a moving object( where mass isn't the only factor contributing to the force vectors) and the force may have a magnified effect on deformation because of an area of support that becomes more of an integral equation type relationship rather than a constant.

I agree with you that "great depth of impression" does nothing to support the validity of IF any impression is real or not. I do strongly disagree that a real sasquatch should be causing deformation simliar to a human(shod or unshod). I've got no hard fast opinions if the sasquatch is a reality, but I have no doubt that under locomotion under the same conditions, a biped as massive as the sasquatch would be punching bigger holes in impressionable substrate than it's human counterpart.

Just my take.

from what i have seen on some of the deeper tracks i have found the ground was moist when the tracks were made. I have seen some tracks that were about 3" deep but the ground was as hard as a rock. In that case the ground had frozen but in mid day the ground would thaw and tracks were easy to make. I have also noticed that animals going up or down hill also leave deeper tracks, depending on the ground. Tracks made shortly after it rained would also explain some of the deeper tracks depending on soil type. Once the soil drys it could become very hard but the tracks would still be there, and deeper than normal. Some of fossilzed dinosaur tracks are a good example of the moist ground effect. As for Patty's track im sure he looked for the best one he could find to make the cast, in many cases that would also be the deepest.

Everyone should try this simple excercise.
1. Find some reasonably soft dirt.
2. Place one foot squarely and flatly on the ground and lift you other foot to put all your weight on that one flat foot.
3. In the same vicinity, take an exagerated step rolling from heel to toe.
4. Compare the depth of the tracks.

I did this yesterday, no time to snap a pic, but you should find that #2 makes very little track, while #3 makes a track 2-3 times deeper in most places. Same animal, same substrate, same conditions. I think this is what WillinYC is basically trying to explain, and he is definitely correct. Meldrum also put an image showing the force transfer across the foot as it steps in that other thread.

Apeman

In addition to the previous posts, let's also consider that, as some have speculated, that bigfoot is an omnivore. The added weight of a deer, or calf or other large animal being carried over it's shoulder would also cause a deeper tracks to be created. Or, as some have also speculated, that bigfoot buries it's dead, maybe it's carrying another creature to a safer area to bury, again the track would be deeper due to the extra weight. For the most part I go along with the idea that the track was most likely made when the ground was softer, probably due to more moisture in the soil from rain or something similar at the time the track was created. Thinking back to the first track I found, which was on a small pile of gravel in a creekbed, the difference in the depth of that track and what I created could have been from from it stepping off a large boulder, which was next to the gravel pile. The added force of that motion alone could have created a deeper track.

you make a good point. even though she seems to flat foot it there is still that transfer of weight as the body weight goes from back/heel to front/toe as the body mass passes over the foot in the motion of the stride.


we also see this in cast off from toes when you study prints.

WillinYC,

Maybe you’re right. You take an engineering approach to the problem and I take a biological approach. It seems unlikely to me that a creature essentially modeled on a human would evolve to make tracks dramatically deeper than human’s. That’s what we’re talking about here: tracks that witnesses say are so deep that stomping and jumping fails to match the depth. That suggests a seriously flawed design (of sasquatches, by evolution). My argument is that evolution would “engineer� a solution to the problem so that sasquatches wouldn’t sink so deeply, (because it’s inefficient to). And I’m suggesting it has, that bigfooters have simply been mistaken in their interpretation of track depth, that the apparently deep tracks are really a function of stride and just a softer ground at the time the tracks were made. I think it’s appealing to interpret tracks as deep if you want to believe they were made by a great big beast – a sasquatch.

My guess is that black bears and Kodiak bears or polar bears all would sink to about the same depth in a given ground. And ungulates, from small deer to moose and all the antelope varieties of Africa probably would also produce tracks of similar depth even though they vary dramatically in size (100 to 1000 pounds). Maybe the bigger animals do make somewhat deeper tracks, but I doubt they’re dramatically deeper, as sasquatch tracks are commonly thought to be (100 grand to anyone who can make them that deep).

With most tracks all that is known are the foot size and track depth. Somehow bigfooters have concluded that sasquatches are very massive. With Patty we know a lot more because there are pictures of her. These provide us with a reasonably good idea of Patty’s size, her height and weight. In his book, Big Footprints, Grover Krantz calculated Patty’s weight to be about 550 pounds. That’s heavy, but is it enough, with wide 14.5 in tracks, to punch remarkably deep tracks into the ground compared to what a man would do? – barely scuff the surface, they say.

With most tracks all that is known is the foot size and track depth. Somehow bigfooters have concluded that sasquatches are very massive. With Patty we know a lot more because there are pictures of her. These provide us with a reasonably good idea of Patty’s size, her height and weight. In his book, Big Footprints, Grover Krantz calculated Patty’s weight to be about 550 pounds. That’s heavy, but is it enough, with wide 14.5 in tracks, to punch remarkably deep tracks into the ground compared to what a man would do? – barely scuff the surface, they say.

With most tracks all that is known is the foot size and track depth. Somehow bigfooters have concluded that sasquatches are very massive. With Patty we know a lot more because there are pictures of her. These provide us with a reasonably good idea of Patty’s size, her height and weight. In his book, Big Footprints, Grover Krantz calculated Patty’s weight to be about 550 pounds. That’s heavy, but is it enough, with wide 14.5 in tracks, to punch remarkably deep tracks into the ground compared to what a man would do? – barely scuff the surface, they say.

I don't think the approach you initially take really matters. No matter how you start out trying to ponder this, you've eventually got to consider the laws of physics. If the sasquatch is indeed real, it has to have a foot design that allows it to move around without incuring chronic foot problems. I'm not sure how you're concluding that sinking a bit deeper into impressionable substrate is a design flaw or in any way would be a major hinderance. Even if we assume that it is, for a biped as massive as the sasquatch to avoid this, it would have to have a more rigid foot design than humans do. From strictly a biological standpoint, this makes no sense and borders on physical impossibility in my view. Soil deformation occurs to put it simply as possible, as a kinetic energy release. KE release occurs whether the substrate is prone to deformation or not(i.e. something walking across a concrete slab is exerting the same force/energy to the ground as it would if it were walking in a homogenous silty sand providing all other factors are consistant. In both cases the ground is pushing back with the same force, the difference being, one is prone to deformation while the other is not.)
Look at how mass factors in to all the various force equations. The purported sasquatch has a mass that conservatively is approximately 3-6 times the magnitude of the average human range. The vertical component of all that KE that a moving sasquatch is generating must either be absorbed internally by the sasquatch foot, or released into the environs via interaction with the substrate. I just can’t see a rigid footed sasquatch as very likely.

With your thinking on it, do you think Patty, at 550 pounds and with those feet, would have made remarkably deep tracks a man's couldn't begin to compare with?

Why do sasquatch feet represent a unique engineering problem when scaling a black bear's up to a kodiak bear's, or a deer's up to a moose's do not?

Yes




I don't think sasquatch feet represent a unique engineering problem with regards to soil deformation. I think they do represent a different situation when compared to humans for reasons already stated. When you get into bears where talking about different critters with different methods of locomotion. Bears don't typically move with periods of singular support neither do ungulates. I haven't given much thought to the feet of bears or ungulates. But I do think you're trying to draw an apples to oranges type comparision here. Deer by nature have more rigid feet by comparison. Bottom line is more massive critters generate more energy when they get moving. Interaction with the substrate still applies.

"I'm not sure how you're concluding that sinking a bit deeper into impressionable substrate is a design flaw or in any way would be a major hinderance."

The whole point is we aren't talking about a bit deeper, we're talking dramatically (100 grand) deeper.
It's a constant and significant energy waste, I would think - sinking into the ground.

My reasoning on using the bear and ungulate analogy (which I don't even know is true! - that big ones sink the same as small ones), is that it's an example (probably) of similar animals (bears vs. huge bears, deer vs. moose) of similar animals (humans and sasquatch) that have evolved to stay on top of the ground regardless of size. That is a relevant point to my argument on sasquatch track depth.

Your engineering laden argument is a bit over my head, to be honest. I need to look at it again AND THINK.

Inmylight

Of course track depth is not just about weight bearing down on a static column. I’ve repeated the point that stride is a major factor. No one in this thread has compared Patty’s tracks to test depressions made statically, they’ve been compared to human tracks. Why isn’t it proper to compare the net depth (weight x complex movements) of two similar animals – humans and sasquatches – with the assumption that their movements and foot areas to weight ratios are similar? It seems to me that comparison is fair, and that if one of those animals makes tracks that are dramatically different from the other, there’s something wrong. And there is something wrong.

The wrong thing, IMO, isn’t to do with the animals – and I’m talking about Patty here, with the assumption she’s real – it’s the ground. The ground moisture content may just have been higher when Patty left her tracks, (among other things). You’re saying that something about Patty, just her weight on her feet, I guess, would make much deeper tracks than a man would. But I don’t understand why. I don’t see that you’ve explained it.

You’ve seen the picture of Roger Patterson holding his bare foot out alongside a Patty cast, right? I suppose RP weighed about 150 pounds. Maybe the area of their feet can be determined and the pounds per square inch produced by each calculated. (PSI certainly does affect depth, right? It along with complex movement?) RP and Patty are very similar bipeds. Why wouldn’t their track depth be similar, all things being equal, if the pounds per square inch their feet exert are similar?

Honestly I don't see how I could have explained it any better or in much more depth than I did in both this thread and the link provided. The resolution of forces involved is fairly complex. If you don't agree with my rationale that's fine. I don't mind continuing this discussion but think we should do it off the forum, as someone is paying for all the bandwidth we're burning up.