[Fzob]

Mr Romilio says the 95-98 million-year-old tracks are preserved in thin beds of siltstone and sandstone deposited in a shallow river when the area was part of a vast, forested floodplain.

Sorry, but declarative sentences like this should make intelligent people giggle. There is no way any one could possibly know this factual.

[BroJoeK]

Fzob: "Sorry, but declarative sentences like this should make intelligent people giggle.
There is no way any one could possibly know this factual."

The sentence you quote begins with, "Mr. Romilo says," which should tell us (whether we are "intelligent people" or not-so-much), that what follows is Mr. Romilo's opinion.

So, how valid is Mr. Romilo's opinion?
Well, the article tells us that Romilo is a PhD candidate and that he led the study, so we can surmise it's at least an educated opinion.

We might also presume that Romilo found evidence of every characteristic mentioned:

• "95-98 million-year-old tracks..." -- geological ages are usually estimated by stratigraphic and radiometric tests.

• "...preserved in thin beds of siltstone and sandstone..." --
  "thin beds" can be measured with a ruler,
  "siltstone and sandstone" are determined by comparison with other well known deposits.

• "...deposited in a shallow river..." -- now it gets tricky, but the basic idea is that deposits layed down in a shallow river look different from those in, for example, a deep lake.
  The scientific exercise is to determine which this particular deposit most resembles.

• "the area was part of a vast, forested floodplain." --
  "vast", how far do these sandstone deposits extend?
  "forested" -- is there evidence of, for example, petrified trees?
  "floodplain" -- floods are indicated by many thin layers of sediment.

In short, those all appear reasonable conclusions based on scientific evidence -- certainly not, in your words, "known facts", but most likely as close to "known facts" as we will ever get.

How valid is Mr. Romilo's opinion?
Until somebody finds evidence of shoddy workmanship, or some new theory to explain geological features, Romilo's work might well stand the tests of time.

So what is your problem with it?