Fossil find
Museum team working to extract fossil discovered at oil company work site
Paleontologists thrilled about accidental discovery.
Paleontologists are at an energy company work site in northwestern Alberta retrieving the fossilized remains of what is believed to be a duck-billed dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous Period.
An employee for the Tourmaline Oil Corp. unearthed the fossil near Spirit River this week while operating a piece of heavy machinery.
Under the law, companies must report such finds to the province.
Officials at the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum in Grande Prairie were contacted. A team from the museum is at the site working with staff from the Royal Tyrrell Museum to excavate and safely remove the fossil.
Andy Neuman, executive director at the Tyrrell, said the fossil will be brought to the facility in Drumheller for study.
The two- to three-metre piece of skeleton unearthed appears to be the tailbone of a hadrosaur, a leaf eater that was probably 10 to 15 metres in length.
Neuman said crews are digging around it in hope of finding additional remains.
“It looks like there may be quite a bit more of it back in the hillside,” he said.
On Wednesday, Brian Brake, executive director at the Currie museum, called the specimen one of the “most complete finds in a long time in this part of the world.”
Neuman said the bones in the tail are quite fragile and the rock in which it is embedded is very hard, making it tricky to excavate.
He said the scientists and company are working together to remove it as expeditiously as possible to prevent it from being damaged. Some people have been showing up at the site in hope of getting a view of the fossil but are being turned away.
“The company has heavy equipment operating so it is not a safe environment,” Neuman said. “We prefer to stabilize the site and get the dinosaur into a safe and secure site.”