A Denver dinosaur museum finds a fossil deep under its own parking lot
DENVER (AP) – A Denver museum known for its dinosaurs exhibitions made a discovery of fossil bones closer to her home than anyone expected, under her own car park.
It came from a drilled hole over 750 feet (230 meters) deep to study the geothermal heating potential for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
The museum is popular with fans of dinosaurs of all ages. The skeletons of full -size dinosaurs barely surprise the knee to a parent, even less to a tyrannosaurus.
This last discovery is not so visually impressive. Despite this, the chances of finding the hockey couple fossil sample were impressive.
With a bore of only a few inches (5 centimeters) wide, the museum officials had trouble describing how improbable it was to hit a dinosaur, even in a region with a good number of such fossils.
“Finding a dinosaur bone in a nucleus is like hitting a hole in that of the moon. It’s like winning the Willy Wonka factory. It’s incredible, it’s super rare,” said James Hagadorn, a museum’s geology curator.
This undated photography provided by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science shows Green ornithopod of Denver’s formation, from 763 ‘deep from the drilling of the City Park Core in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science car park. (Richard M Wicker / Denver Museum of Nature and Science via AP)
According to the museum officials, only two similar discoveries were noted in samples of drilling hole in the world, not to mention the land of a dinosaur museum.
We think that a vertebra of a small dinosaur of plant eater is the source. He lived at the end of the Cretaceous about 67.5 million years ago. An impact on asteroids put an end to the long era of dinosaurs about 66 million years ago, according to scientists.
Fossilized vegetation was also found in the bore hole near the bone.
“This animal lived in what was probably a swampy environment which would have been highly vegetated at the time,” said Patrick O’Connor, curator of the paleontology of vertebrates at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
Dinosaurs’ discoveries in the region over the years include parts of Tyrannosaurus rex and triceratops type fossils. He is the deepest and oldest of Denver to date, said O’Connor.
Other field experts have guaranteed the legitimacy of research but with mixed reactions.
“It’s a surprise, I suppose. Scientifically it is not so exciting,” said Thomas Williamson, paleontology curator at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in Albuquerque.
There was no way to say exactly what kind of dinosaur it was, noted Williamson.
This undated photography provided by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science shows the basic drill used for feasibility and geothermal research to show what is under the North Parking Museum at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. (Richard M Wicker / Denver Museum of Nature and Science via AP)
The discovery is “absolutely legitimate and very cool!” Erin Lacour, director of education programs on the site of the Dinosaur Ridge track, just west of Denver, said by e-mail.
The form of the fossil suggests that it was a duck beak dinosaur or thescelosaurus, a smaller but somewhat similar species, noted Lacournt.
The hole hole fossil is now exposed to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, of course, but it is not planned to look for more in the parking lot.
“I would love to dig a 763 -foot hole (233 meters) in the parking lot to search this dinosaur, the rest. But I don’t think it will fly because we really need parking,” said Hagadorn.
