Jurassic Park spurs on search for dinosaur DNA

Dinosaurs roaming around amusement parks is still entirely a silver-screen phenomenon, but renowned paleontologist Philip Currie has a bone to pick with those who dismiss the possibility of a real-life Jurassic Park.

“We’re in a new golden age of science where we know so much more than just four years ago due to new discoveries and technology,” Currie told a packed theatre at the Royal Alberta Museum last week.

“Jurassic Park has inspired us to look for soft tissue, and there is good evidence that exists. The idea is not preposterous at all.”

To celebrate its 35th anniversary, the Friends of the Royal Alberta Museum Society (FRAMS) invited Currie to guide the crowd through his adventurous career chasing dinosaur fossils.

Currie reminisced about the early 1980s when he was hired as the earth sciences curator at the Provincial Museum of Alberta when there were a fewer paleontologists.

“My initial budget was so bad, it wouldn’t even cover the plaster to make my first dinosaur,” said Currie. “Now there are around 120 paleontologists and we’re doing some pretty incredible things.

“Even still, I doubt we know more than one per cent of one per cent about all the dinosaurs species that have lived.” Currie estimated that paleontologists have so far discovered between 1,000 and 1,500 species of dinosaurs that lived during the 180-million year span of the Mesozoic Era.

“It sounds like a lot, but consider that we have 4,000 living species of mammals, 10,000 species of birds, 6,000 species of reptiles and amphibians and thousands upon thousands of insects,” Currie said.

“We still have an incredible amount of work to do, and Dinosaur Park in Alberta is the richest place in the world to dig.”