Triceratops bones can now be found at Denver museum
Clusters of people looked through a glass wall at a triceratops skull in a Denver Museum of Nature & Science lab Tuesday and speculated about the dinosaur’s mortal enemies and mating rituals 66 million years ago.
Elana Gucciardi, a 16-year-old visiting from Charlotte, N.C., postulated that the three horns atop the dinosaur’s head served a purpose no different than the horns of elk or moose.
“To attract dates,” Gucciardi said. “The bigger the horns, the better chance they had of getting the girl.”
As it turns out, her theory is shared by some leading paleontologists, said Salvador Bastien, a museum fossil “preparator.”
The excavation of bones from a single adult triceratops discovered in May at a Highlands Ranch construction site was completed Tuesday after 30 percent of
the bones were unearthed and taken to the museum. The dinosaur’s skull is already on display at the fossil preparation lab, where visitors such as 2-year-old Chloe Juarez have been enjoying it.
Bastien said capturing the imagination of a child is one of the most important roles of paleontology. The excitement a child feels while looking at a dinosaur fossil could be the first step in a life of discovery and scientific research, he said.
“A child that studies dinosaurs may become a scientist who discovers a cure for cancer,” Bastien said.
The decision to end the excavation at Wind Crest retirement community came after paleontologists and about 50 volunteers couldn’t find any more bones.
“The rule of thumb is to dig one meter around the last unearthed fossil, and if no other fossils are found within that meter it is unlikely any others will be recovered,” Tyler Lyson, the museum’s curator of vertebrate paleontology, said in a news release.
Bastien and others worked on weekends and even through some light rain to unearth about 60 bones. The exact number won’t be tallied until the cleaning process is completed, he said.
The animal’s skull was buried deep in the southeast end of the skeleton, he said. Ribs and vertebrae were spread out about 50 feet behind the skull. An adult triceratops ranges between 12 and 15 feet in length, he said. The distance between bones proved to be one of the skeleton’s biggest surprises, Bastien said.
Project paleontologists theorize that the dinosaur died in an ancient river bed and that rushing water displaced the remaining 70 percent of the skeleton, he said.
“This specimen will help us study the diversity of triceratops fossils in this area. It will help us learn how many species of triceratops lived here,” Bastien said.
It is possible, but not likely, that the bones will have claw marks that could confirm a predator such as a Tyrannosaurus rex killed the dinosaur. Because no soft tissue was discovered, scientists won’t be able to determine other possible causes of the dinosaur’s death, including starvation or disease, he said.
The triceratops, which grew to about 6 feet tall, was a herbivore that likely fed on sycamore leaves and flowery plants, Bastien said.
The frill of a triceratops, which resembles a shield encircling the dinosaur’s head, may have been used for temperature regulation. Bastien pointed at the newly unearthed skull displayed behind the glass wall, and explained that the frill is laced with evidence of blood vessel groups that surround the skull. The blood would regulate heat in the dinosaur.
The excavation was exhilarating, Bastien said.
“It’s really fun to chase down a bone. You feel like an explorer. It’s really exciting to see something never before seen by human eyes,” he said.
While Bastien spoke, a museum volunteer sitting at a table directly behind the triceratops skull used an air scribe, which he described as a “hand-held jackhammer,” to remove dirt particles from another dinosaur previously discovered.
It is the same type of equipment that Bastien and about 180 lab volunteers will use over the next year to clean and strengthen the triceratops bones, he said.
“We borrow from dentistry a lot,” he said, adding that grinders and tooth brushes are very useful tools. “We use a lot of glue, too.”
Seven types of adhesive, including epoxy and super glue, will hold bones together during the cleaning process, Bastien said.
The workers will use a consolidant to “impregnate” the bone with plastic, he added.
Museum visitors will be able to watch the tedious, bone-cleaning process as workers pick away at plaster-encased clusters of bones now stored in 12 pallets.
“Every skeleton gives us a better picture of what prehistoric life was like,” Bastien said.
Brinkmann Constructors and Erickson Living-Wind Crest allowed the museum team to excavate the fossils while they continued construction at the site.
“It is our honor to donate these incredible artifacts to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science for further study,” Craig Erickson, executive director at Wind Crest, said in the news release.