A groundbreaking discovery was made at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science when a new dinosaur fossil was found buried hundreds of feet beneath the facility's parking lot. This remarkable find, uncovered in January, marks the oldest and deepest dinosaur fossil ever discovered in the city of Denver.
While conducting a geothermal drilling test aimed at transitioning from natural gas to geothermal energy, museum crews stumbled upon the partial-bone fossil. Officials announced the discovery on Wednesday, revealing that a research team was simultaneously drilling into the bedrock to better understand the geology of the Denver Basin when they unearthed the fossil, which is estimated to be about 67.5 million years old and located 763 feet below the surface.
Curator of Geology, James Hagadorn, expressed his excitement about this significant find, stating, “This is a scientifically and historically thrilling find for both the museum and the larger Denver community. This fossil comes from an era just before the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs, and it offers a rare window into the ecosystem that once existed right beneath modern-day Denver.”
Upon examination, museum officials identified the fossil as the vertebrae of a plant-eating dinosaur, likely similar to the thescelosaurus. This two-legged dinosaur measured between 10 to 12 feet long and lived during the Cretaceous period, a time when Denver's landscape was characterized by tropical swamps, forests, and floodplains. The fossil also shares similarities with the edmontosaurus, a larger, four-legged dinosaur that coexisted with formidable predators like the Tyrannosaurus rex.
Bob Raynolds, a research associate at the museum, remarked on the rarity of such an opportunity, saying, “In my 35 years at the museum, we’ve never had an opportunity quite like this — to study the deep geologic layers beneath our feet with such precision. That this fossil turned up here, in City Park, is nothing short of magical.”
The discovery of this fossil is not the first of its kind in the metro Denver area. Other notable finds have occurred during construction projects, including the partial skeleton of a triceratops uncovered in Highlands Ranch in 2019 and various bone fragments discovered during the construction of Coors Field in 1994. These past discoveries even inspired the Colorado Rockies' beloved purple dinosaur mascot, Dinger.
Currently, the newly discovered fossil is on display as part of the museum's “Discovering Teen Rex” exhibit. This exhibit highlights the efforts of scientists preparing a juvenile T. rex fossil for public display, which was found by three boys in North Dakota.
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