CNN
–
The phrase “Leave No Stone Tone Turned” takes on a new meaning for paleontologists at the Denver Museum of Natural Sciences, discovering a special fossil hidden just below the nose.
The dinosaur bones were revealed in January to study rock formations beneath the site during an excavation project. The museum announced it on July 9th. The team planned to pull a Earthcore sample, a long cylindrical section of rock or sediment, and came across a partial fossil.
Approximately 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) in diameter – width of the extracted rock nucleus – The disc-shaped specimen is the vertebrae of a plant-eating dinosaur that roamed the area over 67 million years ago. It is the oldest and deepest fossil in Denver, about 760 feet (230 meters) deep from the surface, according to a museum release.
Although there are not enough fossils to determine its species, this rare find will help fill in ecological photographs during the current Cretaceous period of Denver, said Dr. James Hagerdorn, curator of geology at the museum. Scientists were able to narrow the fossils down to the herbivorous group of Bipedal Dinosaurs, known as Ornithopods. This is the first Ornithopod in the city range of Denver.
“We knew these dinosaurs were in Colorado and Wyoming (near other regions), but we didn’t know they were in Denver either… but we doubted that during this period,” Haggadone said. “Now we’re eating another plant cruising around Denver, 67 million years ago, in Denver’s munchings that know zingers, palm leaves, and other ferns and plants.”
According to its website, unexpected additions are on display at the Denver Museum of Natural Science, with approximately 115,000 dinosaurs, plants and mammals in its collection. Hagadrun said that the newly discovered vertebrae believes because there are only two other instances found in the dinosaur bone world It was the first one to be exhibited.
Hagadorn said many of the Ornithopod fossils will remain underground, but there are no plans to excavate deep buried specimens. “Unfortunately, we cannot excavate the entire car park. Parking is really important in the museum and all cultures (centers),” he said. “But the bonus here is that people can now park on top of the dinosaurs.”
The initial purpose of the drilling project was to investigate whether the museum could switch from natural gas to geothermal energy systems. Researchers still have about 1,000 feet of extracted rock cores left for analysis. This could include fossils, minerals, or other structures that are not visible outside the core. Further studies of the samples will help museum experts better understand other environmental factors, such as the geology of the area and drinking water.
While the Rockcore study has many purposes, Hagadrun added that finding dinosaur fossils is not what the team expected. “It’s like a lucky strike. So who was thinking?… It’s like Robin Hood splitting an arrow half or an apple from a 2½ football field.”
Even if complete fossils are not available, the small bones allow scientists to better understand the diversity of dinosaurs that once roamed the Denver Basin near the end of the Cretaceous period, Hagadorn said. He likened it to a diorama with another confirmed character added to the picture.
The discovery is “a great example of how dinosaur fossils are distributed in our environment, a place that is unlikely, like the central part of Denver,” said Dr. Paul Olsen, Arthur D. Storke Memorial Professor of Environmental Science at Columbia University. Olsen was not involved in the discovery.
“It shows that dinosaur bones and other fossils are actually not that unusual. Whenever there is a really good way to see rocks, you hit the fossil,” he added. “And quite often, if (the rock) is at the right age, you bump into the bones of a dinosaur.”
In most cases, rock coring occurs after the fossils are discovered. This is because scientists can see better how rock layered and what the environment was like millions of years ago.
Colorado tends to be a sweet spot for Cretaceous period due to the number of rocks in that period near the surface where the volcano is not harmful or where the fault is not broken, Hagadorn said.
In light of the discovery of the parking lot, paleontologists were urged to go back to all other fossils previously discovered in the Denver metropolitan area, including Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triceratops, Torosaurus and other major fossil deposits, to look at available satellite and elevation data. Before that analysis, the team knew that Ornithopod vertebrae were from the late Cretaceous period. New data published in the Journal Rocky Mountain Geology in June allowed researchers to provide newly discovered fossils and other data included in more accurate age studies.
“No one has ever dated these things before,” Hagadrun said. “It wasn’t very possible to do that in the past, but today, we were able to put all of these things in space using some specialized maps, geological maps, GIS (geographical information systems), and very accurate elevations that we get from satellites, and then we could use them in time.”
While most of the fossils within this study were found in more rural areas, the Ornithopod vertebra highlights remaining fossils that have not yet been discovered, particularly in undeveloped urban areas. By discovering bones within the core and using more accurate dating techniques, understanding the location in time will give you a better understanding of the changing world, said Olsen of Columbia.
“These types of studies give a context as to where humans fit in the history of the universe and the history of the world,” said Olsen, who also did not take part in the new analysis.
“We document changes over time that occur, and sometimes we learn something amazing… and at a much more granular level it gives us a way to try to understand how the world actually works in terms of developing the hypothesis of the climate change hypothesis,” he added. “So all of this gives us a kind of context and a library of reality for understanding, to compare our theories.”
Taylor Nishiori is a freelance journalist based in New York.
