Royal Tyrrell Museum crews working at Dinosaur Provincial Park (Photo by Ross Lavigne)

By Hayley Ferguson

Land Before Time

Crews continue to make discoveries at Dinosaur Provincial Park

Aug 15, 2019 | 2:03 PM

Dinosaur Provincial Park, AB – Every year, thousands of tourists pass through Dinosaur Provincial Park.

75 million years ago, it was over 50 different species of dinosaurs passing though those same badlands.

According to Caleb Brown, the curator of Dinosaur systematics and evolution for the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, it’s the crown jewel of Alberta.

“Dinosaur Provincial Park is one of the best places in the world to find dinosaurs, especially late cretaceous dinosaurs. And it’s recognized for that resource as being both a provincial park but also a UNESCO world heritage site because of those fossil resources.” he said.

Over the past 120 years, more than 500 dinosaur skulls and skeletons have been pulled out of the area.

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A number that can’t be matched by any other area of comparable size in the world.

That’s why the museum has Brown and his crew at the park throughout the year working on known fossil sites and looking for new ones.

“We’re looking to see bits of fossils poking out. And when we find a bit of a fossil poking out, we follow it in a little bit and sometimes it just stops and that’s all there is.” Brown explained. “But sometimes one bone connects to another bone connects to another bone. And you have a full skeleton there.”

Toy model of Ankylosaur

They are currently creating a field jacket out of plaster and burlap strips around a hind leg and a 1.7 metre long complete tail club to protect the fossil for it’s move.

The move is expected to happen in the fall.

Senior technician for the museum Darren Tanke says the tail club fossil is one of the first of its kind in the country.

“There’s a lot of excitement at the museum about this because we do have tail clubs from armoured dinosaurs, but they are pieces. They aren’t complete specimens like this.” Tanke said.

Tanke, who first started volunteering at the park in 1979, say the best part of his job is always discovering something new like the tail club.

“So it’s very rewarding when you start with a pile of rumble such as which it looked like.” Tanke described. “And then to fit it all back together and chip and grind and saw off all the rock. And then to do a bit of reconstruction and then boom it’s a complete skull.”

Brown agreed with Tanke.

“You could be walking on the badlands and see something on the ground, and you find something new. A new specimen!” He said. “And sometimes that happens back in the lab in your research office where you open a jacket and you find something unexpected. Or you make an interesting scientific conclusion that you wouldn’t have thought of before based on new fossil evidence. Scientists are very curious and I’m very curios so it’s when we are discovering something new that really motivates me.”

Tanke is hopefully that the Ankylosaur will be ready for display next spring at the Royal Tyrrell for people from around the world to enjoy.