Posted on 03/25/2011 9:28:06 PM PDT by smokingfrog
A Suncor oilsands worker near Fort McMurray, Alta., has unearthed a rare dinosaur fossil that could be 110 million years old.
On Monday, shovel operator Shawn Funk noticed a large lump of dirt with an odd texture and a diamond pattern in a shovel-load of material.
He shut down the shovel, and together he and supervisor Michel Gratton sent photos of the find to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta.
The find intrigued experts enough that the museum sent a scientist and a technician up to Fort McMurray two days later.
Curator Donald Henderson believes the completely intact dinosaur skeleton is the earliest dinosaur ever found in Alberta — a 110-million-year-old fossil of ankylosaur, a rare land dinosaur with bony plates of body armour.
Ankylosaur was a squat, plant-eating quadruped with powerful limbs and a club-like tail probably used for self-defence.
“We’ve never found a dinosaur in this location,” Henderson said.
“Because the area was once a sea, most finds are invertebrates such as clams and ammonites," he said. "Marine reptiles have been found in the area before, but even these are not common.
"The last giant reptile removed from this area was an ichthyosaur found 10 years ago. To find an ankylosaur is totally unexpected here. Finding one of these animals anywhere is a rare occurrence.”
Scientists will return to Fort McMurray next week to supervise the removal and transportation of the specimen to the museum for further study.
"The good news is that the fossil is in 3-D," said Henderson. "The bad news is the rock is extremely hard. It's harder than the bone and it's going to take an awful lot of careful work to get it out."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
The Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller is well worth the trip. Spend the whole day there.
Funkosaurus!
Aren’t all dinosaurs rare?
Wait, Jimmah Carter is going to NK and Cuba.
I would have been nice if some idiot in editing actually told us what country the article is talking about.
OK: I know the term “oilsands” is a give-away but there is no excuse for poor writing or editing.
Magnificent!
They’re off like a herd of... ankylosaur?
It looks a bit like it wants to be a turtle. It sports armor that would make any punk rocker jealous, and look ma no piercing to put it in place!
The funniest thing is they didn’t expect an ankylosaur to be there, as supposed former sea-bed. Could this critter have been amphibious? Did some prehistoric Viking have it on board as a kind of pet?
“would have been nice if some idiot in editing actually told us what country the article is talking about.”
I thought the same thing.
Hopefully after it’s dug out we see something more on it.
Ping to that “Gods, Graves, Glyphs” list you manage.
Writers for regional papers still largely don’t style for a global audience. Alta. is Alberta, and they’re sited in Canada (note the .ca website). One catty comment on the article avers that “American Republicans” believe the earth 6000 years old (another ignoramus about old-earth creationism, I guess).
I’d like to know what methods they use to get the reportedly harder rock off of the reportedly softer bones. Is the one chemically vulnerable to a certain acid and the other not? Laser away the harder rock by hand in a process that would tax a sculptor’s patience?
It’s a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation story, intended for Canadian audiences. Or do you resent when every local news story in the US fails to specify that it took place in the US?
Don't knock it. The way thing are going demographically in the US, you might have to live there. It's beautiful. I flunked out of Med School in Canada. The only anatomy lesson I could remember was, "The Queen's Regina is in Saskatchewan."
As my sisters and I learned working in the tourist business in Maine, there is also a difference between a Canadian and a Canoe. There's a chance the Canoe could tip.
Depends on the rock. Sometimes they even chip the matrix rock off by hand with a hammer or dental tools. The “bones” aren’t all that much softer, since they’ve mineralized.
It fell offn the Ark...
I thought the same thing. I eventually figured that "Alta" was short for Alberta, and CBC stood for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Then I went to the d@mn website where it said Canada.
There are museums in Canada?
It could be “worse.” How many times have we come across FR articles in the “Boonietown Times” talking about an event in the city of “Ralphville.” Eventually, digging to a “contact us” (if it shows more than an email address) reveals the geographic locale if the original poster didn’t note it. The editors of the Boonietown Times, of course, never imagined being on the web before a million eyes.
Its mate must have been awfully lonely because reptiles were counted as among the “unclean” (not fit for ritual sacrifices even in Noah’s day, I think, though not yet verboten to eat) and so there would have been only two of them. One accident away from having modern ankylosaurs. That would be an awesome specimen in a zoo.
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.