For the paleontologists of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the phrase “don’t leave a single stone”, who discovered a special fossil hidden just under his nose – after the museum’s parking lot.
The dinosaur bone revealed in January during a drill project to explore the rocks under the site, the museum announced July 9. The team planned to pull out an example of the core of the Earth, a long cylindrical piece of rock or sediment and encountered partial fossil.
A vertebra of a plant-width-dinosaur, which has wandered more than 67 million years ago, is an example of a rocks of the rocks at a diameter-in-diameter-diameter-diameter-diameter rocks. According to the museum, it is about 760 feet (230 meters) under the surface, it is the oldest and deepest fossil ever found in the denver.
Fossilies are not enough to determine its species, but this rare find helps to fill the ecosystem painting in the chalk period in the current Denver, said Dr. James Hagadorn, a curator of the museum’s geology. Scientists were able to narrow the fossil to the herbivorous two -way Groups known as ornithopods, and this is the first ornithopode found within the city of Denver.
“We knew those dinosaurs (nearby are in other colorado) or Wyoming, but we didn’t know they were also in Denver … But we suspect it during this period,” Hagadorn said. “Now we have another plant eater who sailed around Denver, who has been 67 million years ago.
Dash of dinosaur fossils
Dr. James Hagadorn (left), curator of the museum’s geology and research fellow dr. Bob Raynolds examines scientific core. – Richard M. Wicker/Denver Museum of Nature and Science
An unexpected addition is now displayed at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which has about 115,000 dinosaurs, plants and mammalian fossils, according to its website. Since there are only two more cases in the world of dinosaur bone, when the main example was unveiled, Hagadorn said he believed the newly found vertebra is the first to appear.
More ornithopod fossils remain underground, but do not intend to dig a deeply buried specimen, Hagadorn said. “Unfortunately, we can’t dig all our parking lots. Parking is really important in the museum and all cultural (centers),” he said. “But here the bonus is that people can stand directly on the dinosaur now.”
The initial purpose of the drill project was to investigate whether the museum could move from natural gas to the geothermal energy system. Researchers still have about 1000 feet of extracted rock core to analyze – which may contain fossils, minerals or other structures that were not visible on the outside of the core, Hagadorn said. Further sample study will also help museum experts better understand the geology of the region and other environmental factors such as drinking water.
Although there are many goals while studying the rock core, finding the dinosaur fossil was not something the team expected, Hagadorn added. “It’s like a happy strike. I mean who would have understood? … It’s like Robin Hood, dividing the arrow in half, or an apple from 2 ½ football pitch.”
Even without all the minerals, a small bone allows scientists to better understand the diversity of dinosaurs, who once wandered the Denver Basin near the end of the chalk, said Hagadorn. He equated this by Diorama, which contains another approved character, attached to the picture.
Colorado’s chalk period
Thescelosaurus, ornithopod dinosaur with vertebrae, similar to the image of the one found in the rock core. – Andrey Atuchin/Denver Museum of Nature and Science
The conclusion is “a beautiful example of how the dinosaur fossils are distributed around our environment, even in … places that may seem unlikely, as in the middle of the city of Denver,” said Paul Olsen, a paleontologist and Arthur D. Storke University of Land and Environment University. Olsen was not associated with the discovery.
“It illustrates how dinosaur bones and other fossils are definitely not terrible rare, and at any time you have a really good way to look at the rock … You will get into the fossils,” he added. “And quite often, if (rock) is a good age, you will enter the dinosaur bones.”
The most common rocks are done by discovering fossils because it can give scientists a better look at the rock layer and what environment was millions of years ago, Olsen said.
Colorado is usually a sweet location of chalk fossils due to the number of rocks near the surface that period, which volcanoes have not caused damage or failures, said Hagadorn.
Given the discovery of the parking lot, paleontologists were inspired to go back and look at available satellites and height data so far all other fossils previously found in the Denver Metro area, including Tyrannosaurus Rex, Tricaratops and Torah and other major fossil deposits. Before this analysis, the team only knew that the ornithopod vertebra was from the late chalk period. With new data that in June Published in Rocky Mountain Geology, researchers were able to give the newly discovered fossil, as well as others in the study more accurate.
“In the past, no one has ever taken these things,” Hagadorn said. “It was not very possible before, but today we were able to use some specialized maps, geological maps, GIS (geographical information system) and the really precise ups that you can now get from the satellites so that all of these things are arranged in space and later.”
Although most of the study fossils have been found in more rural areas, the Ornithopod vertebrae emphasize the remaining fossils that have not yet been discovered, especially in unprecedented areas of the city. The discovery of the bone in the core and the use of more accurate dating methods to understand its place in time allows you to better understand the changing world, Colombian Olsen said.
“Such research gives people a context where they are suitable for the history of the universe and world history,” said Olsen, who also did not participate in a new analysis.
“It documents changes over time, and sometimes we learn really stunning things. … and at a much more granular level, it gives us ways to understand how the world actually works in terms of climate change (or) hypotheses related to mass extinction hypotheses,” he added. “So it all gives us the context of understanding and the library of reality to compare our theories.”
Taylor Nigioli is a freelance journalist located in New York.
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