Dino study yields find in northeastern B.C.

A recent visit to two paleontology museums in northeastern British Columbia was all it took to turn a local woman into a dinosaur sleuth with a significant discovery to her credit.

Nicky Taylor, her husband and a relative visiting from New Zealand, spent two days touring paleontology exhibits around the Peace River region in August and then decided to explore the Tumbler Ridge area hoping to spot interesting rocks and fossils.

It didn’t take long for Taylor to spy something she thought was similar to exhibits she’d seen in the museums.

They took pictures of the find and forwarded them to the Peace Region Paleontology Research Centre, which confirmed the item is indeed from a time when dinosaurs roamed the world.

Scientists Richard McCrea and Lisa Buckley say the fossilized bone is unlike anything yet discovered around Tumbler Ridge and probably belonged to a marine reptile from the Cretaceous period, ending over 66 million years ago.

Further study and consultation is needed but it’s expected the bone will eventually be displayed in the Dinosaur Discovery Gallery in Tumbler Ridge.

Taylor credits her brief exposure to the paleontology museums for inspiring the find.

“I would have thought nothing of it normally,” she says. “I would probably even have ignored it, but given our experiences the previous two days it was of a lot more interest.”

Taylor picked up the fossilized remains after spotting them and says they were much heavier than she expected.

Northeastern B.C. has a rich history of fossil discoveries. In 2008, scientists uncovered a 100million-year-old dinosaur highway containing hundreds of fossilized prints west of Hudson’s Hope and kept it a secret until last year.

The find was kept under wraps until the area could be properly protected and excavated.

Researchers have also confirmed several other recent and unique discoveries, including a piece of a tyrannosaurus skull unearthed in June and believed to be about 75 million years old.