Posted on 05/14/2013 7:00:46 AM PDT by Renfield
On Monday, March 21, 2011 the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta received word that the remains of either a plesiosaur or an ichthyosaur had been discovered in the Milllennium Mine operated by the petroleum company Suncor Inc. This mine is located about 30 km north of the town of Fort McMurray (population ~50,000) in northeastern Alberta (about 800km north of Drumheller), and is one of the places where bitumen rich sand is mined and refined into various petroleum products.
On Wednesday, March 23, 2011 myself and technician Darren Tanke flew up to Fort McMurray expecting to see a marine reptile of the sort found occasionally in the region over the past 20 years. After a few minutes of puzzling we realized it was something totally unexpected – a perfectly three-dimensionally preserved, uncrushed, armoured dinosaur complete with all the armour in place, original scales perfectly aligned with the armour, all the fingers and toes (very rare), and probable stomach contents. Unfortunately, half the fossil was smashed by the giant excavator bucket into many tens of large pieces, and the other half was embedded 8m up a 12m high cliff. A week later Darren Tanke and I returned to the mine to oversee the collection of the specimen...
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.