DENVER, July 18: Paleontologists at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science have discovered a special fossil hidden beneath the museum’s parking lot.
The dinosaur bone came to light in January during a drilling project to study the layers of rock underneath the site, the museum announced on July nine.
The team had planned to pull an Earth core sample, a long cylindrical piece of rock or sediment, and came across a partial fossil, reported CNN.
At about 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) in diameter – the width of the extracted rock core – the disk-shaped specimen is the vertebra of a plant-eating dinosaur that roamed the region more than 67 million years ago. At a depth of about 760 feet (230 metres) below the surface, it is the oldest and deepest fossil ever found within Denver, as per the museum’s release.
Scientists were able to narrow the fossil down to an herbivorous group of bipedal dinosaurs, known as ornithopods, and it’s the first ornithopod to be found in Denver’s city limits.
The unexpected addition is now on display at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which has around 115,000 dinosaur, plant and mammal fossils in its collection.
In light of the parking lot discovery, paleontologists are looking at available satellite and elevation data to date all other fossils previously found within the Denver metro area, including a Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops and Torosaurus, and other major fossil deposits.
(UNI)
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