World's Largest Dinosaur Graveyard Found [ Alberta Canada ]

Discovery News ^ | Tuesday, June 22, 2010 | Jennifer Viegas

[SunkenCiv]

The world's largest dinosaur graveyard has been discovered in Alberta, Canada, according to David Eberth of the Royal Tyrrell Museum and other scientists working on the project.

The Vancouver Sun reports that the massive dinosaur bonebed is 1.43-square miles in size. Eberth says it contains thousands of bones belonging to the dinosaur Centrosaurus, which once lived near what is now the Saskatchewan border.

Centrosaurus was a plant-eating, cow-sized dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous, around 75 million years ago. It cut quite a figure back then, with its top-of-the-head frills and rhino-like nose horn. There is some evidence that it engaged in horn to horn combat among its own species, probably males fighting over mates.

The impressive jaw muscles of Centrosaurus allowed it to sheer through extremely tough foliage with ease...

A journal paper outlining details about it is expected later this month.

Alberta has yielded many well-preserved dinosaur remains in the past, but paleontologists have never quite been sure why. It's hoped that this latest find may help to clarify what geological conditions, or series of events, help to produce such pristine fossils.

When Centrosaurus was alive, Alberta was a balmy tropical area along a coast. Dinosaurs are often found in such places. Can you blame them? Good weather, nice scenery, plentiful water and good eats were the primary draws.

There was, however, trouble in paradise, since every so often horrible tropical storms wiped out large numbers of dinosaurs, other animals, and plants. After the deaths, there is new evidence that mammals would come to check out the carnage and gnaw on the bones.

[Sawdring]

I never remember his nose being that big.

[Elsiejay]

Seems odd, that there are fossil remains in large numbers of these huge animals in close proximity to each other, seemingly buried rather rapidly, their skeletal remains largely intact, not gnawed or scattered by scavenging carnivores.

[sleddogs]

The Double-Mint twins?

[Rembrandt]

Not yet reported is that, nearby they also found a giant smoker with remnants of neanderthals, beer cans and BBQ sauce bottle caps.

[ApplegateRanch]

Might be cow sized, but I’ll bet it still tasted more like chicken than beef.

Wonder if any matador would’ve had the guts to take one of these on? Maybe have to call them doormatadors, if they tried it.

[SunkenCiv]

LOL! Probably still used toothpicks. I’d guess that toothpick technology hasn’t changed much.

[SunkenCiv]

Olé!

[SunkenCiv]

The truth is, I was looking for info on Jack Horner’s discoveries in Montana, because it seemed to me that he found a death assemblage (even if he didn’t call it that) of dozens or more identical critters. Wound up finding some other info, got distracted for a few minutes, and found that pic, which was so close that I had to use it. :’)

[SunkenCiv]

Fossilization is rare, and I’m of the view that death by rapid burial (as with the Burgess Shale, or death assemblages such as have been found in volcanic strata) or burial not long after death are generally the best explanations. OTOH, in Pompeii there are plaster of Paris casts made inside cavities left when buried victims’ remains decomposed — no bones. So, even that doesn’t happen every time.

[SunkenCiv]

Speaking of things that only exist as dead forms... ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

When Centrosaurus was alive, Alberta was a balmy tropical area along a coast. Dinosaurs are often found in such places... There was, however, trouble in paradise, since every so often horrible tropical storms wiped out large numbers of dinosaurs, other animals, and plants. After the deaths, there is new evidence that mammals would come to check out the carnage and gnaw on the bones.

Yeah, probably these squalls are unrelated to asteroid impacts.

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[bigheadfred]

Seems odd, that there are fossil remains in large numbers of these huge animals in close proximity to each other, seemingly buried rather rapidly, their skeletal remains largely intact, not gnawed or scattered by scavenging carnivores.

Their descendants live on today. And they're still grouping up and jumping off cliffs en masse.

[bigheadfred]

Wonder if any matador would’ve had the guts to take one of these on? Maybe have to call them doormatadors, if they tried it.

Olé!

LOTFL!

[SunkenCiv]

• Dorr, Michigan
• Joshua Doore
• Undoormat

[Elsiejay]

Rapid burial by volcanic ash is rather easily comprehended; by other means, not so much.
The massive, incomprehensibly rapid burials of trilobites comes to mind, preserving gazillions of their remains intact over wide areas, their structures amazingly intact, even in some instances their chitinious exoskeletons not mineralized, while fossil remains of their evolutionary predecessors elude us, denying us clues as to the developmental steps leading to the amazingly (and that word fails to render descriptive justice) complex trilobite eye .

[SunkenCiv]

Whole communities of ape-like creatures may have been killed in volcanic disasters that struck East Africa 18 million years ago... the once active volcano Kisingiri... contained fossils of what is believed to be a forerunner of humans called Proconsul... they may have been caught by a pyroclastic flow... the abundance of the hominoid fossils may represent "death assemblages" -- whole populations wiped out simultaneously by "glowing cloud" eruptions.

[Ole Okie]

It grieves me to think that there were no humans around to engage in Centrosaurus tipping.

Oh the humanity!

[gleeaikin]

Whaat are we going to do without Helen Thomas to kick around any more?

[SunkenCiv]

:’D