Dinosaurs of the Dakotas: ND’s Prehistoric Residents
When thinking of North Dakota, images of rolling planes, oil wells, and vast, beautiful sunsets may readily come to mind. What might not be your first thought is “dinosaur stomping ground”—but North Dakota has that element, too. The open plains, river valleys and Badlands have all lent themselves to the preservation of the prehistoric residents of our state—dinosaurs.
The Badlands are notoriously rough, and they’ve never taken too kindly to ecosystems looking to flourish; however, we’re discovering that they are well-suited to shield pieces of life long-past. Much of North Dakota’s surface is sedimentary rock, which continues to act as a shield for fossils of organisms who called this area home over millions of years.
North Dakota used to be the home of Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Edmontonia, and Edmontosaurus. Entire fossils and partial fossils have all been found of these long-silent monsters in North Dakota. One of the most notable discoveries was Bob the Triceratops, a nearly intact specimen discovered in the Hell Creek formation in Bowman County in 2003 (he also took up residence at the Barnes County Museum for a time—more on that later). The Hell Creek Formation is a geological feature that stretches over parts of Montana,
South Dakota, North Dakota and Wyoming. Bowman County, North Dakota, is a paleontologist’s dream because it’s part of the sedimentary layer.
During the Cretaceous period, North Dakota was almost entirely underwater, covered by part of the Western Interior Seaway of North America. During that time, marine animals thrived in a warm, tropical environment, and their fossils have been located in now-dry areas of the state. One of the apex predators in the Seaway was the Mosasaur, a creature over 23 feet in length. The Champsosaurus, a distant relative of the crocodile, also swam in its waters and the species left behind an abundance of fossils in North Dakota.
The Dinosaur Next Door
Valley City residents are no stranger to fossil neighbors. After years of being dug up and then mounted on a steel frame, Bob the Triceratops made his home in the Barnes County Museum from June 2014 to December 2015. There, the massive specimen wowed many locals and visitors. At 26 feet long and having around 90% of his major bones, Bob is one of the largest, most complete Triceratops skeletons ever assembled out of original bones. After Bob departed the museum for other adventures, another dino took his place: Gundy. Gundy is a bit different than Bob in a few ways. She’s smaller, she’s female and she’s not actually made of bone. Instead, Gundy is a cast of a fossilized Triceratops that resides in Japan. The original fossil was found in 1992 in the Hell Creek formation deposits of northwestern South Dakota. Gundy remains at the Barnes County Museum.
Dino Mummy
A major fossil discovery in 1999 put North Dakota in the national spotlight; 16-year-old Tyler Lyson made an incredible discovery on his uncle’s farm near Bowman. It wasn’t just bones—it was a Hadrosaur mummy, with fossilized soft tissues like skin, tendons and ligaments. Scientists used the giant CT scanner manufactured by Boeing to take a detailed look at the one-of-a-kind fossil, named Dakota, and they found things that have altered the field of paleontology. For example, Dakota’s backside appeared to be about 25% larger than previously thought, and because of that likely could reach speeds of 28 mph (10 mph faster than T-Rex). The CT scan also revealed that the skin may have been striped and not block colored, creating a striped camouflage pattern on some parts of Dakota.
Evidence of Extinction
In the Hell Creek Formation near Bowman, paleontologist Robert DePalma unearthed many fossils near the KT boundary. This is a sedimentary layer of debris, ash, and soot in which evidence of a potentially planet-altering asteroid event has been discovered. This boundary contains the story about what happened at the end of the Cretaceous period—what happened to the dinosaurs. After an impact crater was discovered near the Yucatan peninsula and dated back to the period of the dinosaurs’ mass extinction, scientists widely accepted the hypothesis that the event was catastrophic enough to wipe out nearly 75% of the planet’s life forms. The KT boundary marks the transition between the Cretaceous (K) and Tertiary (T) periods (the Tertiary period was renamed the Paleogene age, but KT still sticks).
Still, very little is known about the plant and animal life present at the time of the catastrophic event, because very few deposits exist very near the KT boundary. DePalma’s discoveries in western North Dakota have changed all of that. In excavating the site in Bowman, DePalma has uncovered a wealth of evidence of the day that the 6-milewide asteroid struck the earth.
He uncovered fossils of fish with a broken snout, breaking as the animal was forced against a submerged tree. Trees that were alive and blooming at the time they were buried. Fish with their tails ripped from their bodies, fish impaled by other fish.
DePalma also found both freshwater fish and marine reptiles, unusual for the area, since the closest sea at the time was several miles from the dig site. It was evident that a huge, violent flood surge from nearby bodies of saltwater had swept the marine life inland. He found perfectly preserved logjams, charred tree trunks from the firestorm the asteroid created, and threedimensional fossils (this is unusual, as fossils of animals who died and were eventually buried in sediment are pressed flat by the weight).
When he found microtektites, which were created when molten rock was blown into the air with the asteroid’s impact and formed glass “blobs,” eventually raining back down into the rapidly solidifying sediment. These microtektites that were buried alongside the fossils and debris told DePalma that he was looking back on the very day of the disaster, preserved timelessly in the ground.
North Dakota’s dino past is preserved and celebrated at museums across the state. The heritage museum in Bismarck features a timeline exhibit of fossils to demonstrate how life has changed over millions of years in North
Dakota. The Paul Broste rock museum in Parshall houses a huge collection of fossils, rocks and minerals, gathered by farmer Paul Broste. The Dinosaur Museum in Dickinson is the home to 11 full-scale skeletons and hundreds of rocks and minerals, and the Barnes County Museum houses a truly unique Triceratops cast.
North Dakota rests directly on top of a treasure trove of discovery.
Excavations in search of fossils continue, as do the discoveries, and pieces of our state are displayed at hundreds of museums around the world. It kind of makes you wonder what is right below your feet, doesn’t it?