vlog from the past!

it's time for a change. huge changes...

specifically i'm looking at some big changes here on the tyrannosaur chronicles. okay, i guess that is not specifically, but rather everything...

working in conjunction with my friends at prehistoric insanity productions we are looking at a huge change in format here. we're still in the early stages of setting this up, but expect big things in the new year!

as a preview of things to come, and because we've meant to put this up for ages, so here is a special treat from my days back at the tyrrell.

we shot this in 2006, and it was cutting edge at its time (we even had dr. currie on as an advisor!)... however there is more info on the subject these days, like anything else. i just say it as i'm posting it now 4 years later. please go easy on the info lag (imagine you are 4 years in the past).

oh and for some reason the camcorder picked up my name all funny...

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

super star (asteriod, more like it!) encounter...

so i'd hit a bunch of dead ends (here AND here...) in trying to find some information on the pack of the primordial feather. this meant that mike, the librarian, wasn't going to be able to help me track the primordials down here in town, that alone their mysterious crate.

i was feeling kind of hopeless as i made my way out of the university of calgary. how on earth was i going to find a handful of dinosaurs in a giant city like calgary? especially when they were trying to hide!

pulling me momentarily out of my depression, was a man that walked by me in the science building's lobby. it took my tiny brain a minute to click into who he was, but i thought he looked familiar...

then it hit me, and i sprinted after him...

"doctor hildebrand?" i called, and fortunately for me i remembered right!

dr. alan hildebrand turned around and was slightly puzzled to see me (i assume more because he is not used to dinosaurs calling him down, rather then hearing his name) "yes," he said to confirm it was him. "how can i help you?"

i'd never met dr. hilderbrand before, but knew him by reputation and from his many appearances on science documentaries.

i quickly introduced myself, and he was kind enough to put up with my fanboy yammering for a couple of minutes.

why was i so in awe of meeting dr. hilderbrand you might ask?

well i shall answer that question... even if you didn't ask it!

in short he is one of "the dudes" when it comes to asteroid research...

why his meteorite work is of interest to me in particular (not that asteroids aren't cool in their own right!) is that his most famous discovery related to space rocks was the one that (may) have wiped out the dinosaurs!

you have probably heard this idea...

a really big asteroid hit the earth 65 million years ago at the end of the cretaceous period (this impact in fact "caused" the end of the cretaceous as the extinction is what geologists used to define the periods end), and the damage its crashing into our planet was so powerful it devastated every known ecosystem of the time!

the asteroid gets lots of the blame, but in some ways it was the earth's "fault" things got so bad after the interstellar accident. the meteorite was going so fast and had so much energy that it exploded and vaporized when it hit the planet.

well this kicked a lot of things up into the air (and possibly higher then that!) ranging from dust to outright molten rock! that's right this was so big an impact that sky filled up with something very much like lava, which then rained down just like evaporated water normally does when it gets to heavy to stay in the air.

if the earth had been made of different stuff, this wouldn't have happened. so this is why i say the bad things that followed are as much due to do with the earth as the asteroid.

there was only one thing worse then raining lava (which no doubt did untold damage... which we find evidence of all over the world in rocks of this era), and was the smaller lighter dust and dirt that continued to float. after the heavier fiery stuff fell out of the sky (causing forest fires ALL over the world at the same time!!!), the cloud of dust lingered in the sky and blocked out all the light.

meaning there was no sun for plants to use in making food. if you get rid of plants the whole animal food chain falls apart!

this caused the final extinction of the dinosaurs (i say final, as the vast majority of dinosaurs species had gone extinct well before this event during our 160 million year existence, only the last few families still alive at this point were alive to be killed... which sounds weird i know, but is true!), and numerous other creatures of the time.

this whole sequence of events has pretty much been accepted by science. even people who don't know a lot about dinosaurs or palaeontology can tell you the rough story. however this wasn't always the case...

when this theory was first proposed by geologist walter alvarez and his father, super famous nobel prize winning physicist, luis alvarez it was hotly contested. one of the key problems they had in proving their theory, was where did the asteroid hit?

this is the part of the story where dr. hildebrand played a key role... though not at first.

a few years before the alvarez's proposed an asteroid impact 65 million years ago, in 1978 the crater site was indirectly discovered by geologist glen penfield. he recognized a number of anomalies in the local geography of the yucatán peninsula of southern mexico (i used to call yucatán the little alligator mouth at the bottom of north america...).

however due to an inability to get access to sites and better samples he was unable to work out what exactly he had stumbled across. penfield wrote up a paper about what he could only see as a cataclysmic event in the cretaceous, but suspected the final answer would be extraordinary...

many years later enter, then a grad student, alan hildebrand. he grew very interested in the theory of an asteroid impact and began trying to find the prehistoric crater as his grad project. unaware of glen penfield's work in mexico, hildebrand slowly began to close in on equatorial america as the most likely site. recognizing clues in haiti, hildebrand might have closed in on mexico by himself, but he then learned of glen penfield's findings.

hildebrand approached penfield, and the two resumed penfield's abandoned search from over a decade previous. it was a historic team up, and with hildebrand in america he could get access to the one thing penfield couldn't in mexico. old drill samples stored state side. analyzing these samples the two published on how they believed yucatán was the site of the meteorite's landing.

they would be proven correct. a later satellite survey from outer space would detect a still visible (underground buried mind you, but it was undistorted millions of years later and thus visible when you look through the rock with sensors) a nearly perfect circular crater.

so like many of the biggest discoveries, it took a lot of people to get to the truth. one of whom i was shaking the hand of here today!

it was really cool to get to meet dr. hildebrand. sadly he didn't have time for a chat. i only really got to introduce myself.

"well it was nice to meet you," dr. hildebrand said in conclusion. i thanked him for his time, and expected to be on my own way... then he caught me totally by surprise with another sentence. "hopefully i'll bump into you down in collections soon."

"what?" i asked in total confusion. then i thought i understood "oh no i don't work here at the university. they don't have an theropod 'lab rats'."

this seemed to make sense to dr. hildebrand. "that explains why i hadn't seen any of you guys down there before."

"guys?" i asked not following.

"your friends," dr. hildebrand offered, hoping i'd know what he was talking about. obviously my lack of following him came across. "all you theropods down in the geology collections."

did he just say what i think he did!?!

i begged dr. hildebrand to explain... i couldn't believe it, not only was he an asteroid guru, he may have just lead me right to the crate i so desperately was trying to find!

while going into the deep bowels of the uni's geology department's collections dr. hildebrand said he'd encountered a group of theropod dinosaurs in one of the more remote corridors of the basement. he figured they were just part of the palaeo departments dinosaur lab rat collection.

"were they coelurosaurs?" i asked.

"well i'm no expert," dr. hildebrand warned as he thought about it a second. "now that you mention it, if i had to go off my momentary observations, yes i would say they all were."

"thank you so much!!!" i said completely sincere to dr. hildebrand. "you have been a HUGE help! i have to go though."

before he could ask any questions, i sprinted away from dr. hildebrand. i needed to find a phone. i might have just found the elusive clue we needed to track down the pack! would it allow mike to pinpoint the primordials? i needed to find out right away, and so off i went...

thinking about now, i guess it was a little rude of my to run off on dr. hildebrand. it was for a good reason... hopefully i'll get to meet him again and explain my reasons...

however now i had a pack hunt on my claws...

to be continued... with a lead?

micro fossils vlog style!!!

man, oh man! i knew that returning to my old hometown would dredge up some old memories. little did i realize some of these would be videoized ones!

amy "dug up" this old presentation i did for the badlands sciency camp. the nice folks over at prehistoric insanity have been nice enough to help me turn it into a plog (which i used to call vlogs, but it was pointed out to me that a vlog is typically a moving picture, where mine are just still ones with a voice over. so i figured i needed to give my format a new name... so taaa-da! welcome to my "first" plog!)

this used to be the power point introduction for an educational program where kids at camp would help sort micro fossils for actual scientific research by dr. donald brinkman of the royal tyrrell musuem! you might recognize some of the pictures in it from my first ever big adventure on this blog over 2 years ago!

now of course watching these plogs remember that they were made back when i still worked for the museum, and that a lot has changed in my life since then (in particular how i get along with my cousin larry!)

the reason i'm uploading these in the middle of my recent field work is that i just found a big cache of micro fossils, and rather than retype all this out I thought why not share this great Palaeo FACT! of mine from the old days!

so now that you know you're micros, i can tell you all about my recently found micro site!... next post that is...

field journal #3

today i made a potentially exciting find in my attempt to track the lost quarrys of francis slate, this morning!

it may very well be of interest to you on the innerweb, especially if you've never been out fossil hunting before.

before i start, just a fun factiod: the fancy palaeolotogic term for fossil hunting is prospecting. prospecting is just walking around looking on the ground for either the fossils themselves or traces of them being around somewhere nearby.


prospecting for fossils can be a very hard thing. especially when you look at the amount of ground i have to potentially look over! just in this picture i could spend all week going up and down the visible slopes searching for fossils.

however for the sake of looking for lost quarrys, i need to cover a lot of ground and get to a lot of good vantage points to look for potential landmarks present in the photos of francis slate. so fossil hunting has to be efficient and doable while i'm moving between these lookout points, or i just can't afford to look for fossils.

i don't want to waste this opportunity wandering the badlands. there are tons of new fossils just sitting there to be found, but i also want to find evidence of slate. so i'm thinking why not combine both types of exploration into this one expedition. fortunately for me there is a way to do both too!

by keeping all my prospecting at the baseline of the badland's hills i can get around easily to my various vantage points, and yet do a pretty effective sweep for fossils inbetween them.

wandering in coulees like this one above (again coulee is the local term for natural drainage whether it be a tiny groove in the side of a hill or a huge valley) i can find fossils that are even at the very top of hill!

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which might seem like me wishfully thinking. as there is no way for me to see fossils all the way at the top. so i can't be claiming to watch for them as i walk by. rather the fossils let me know there up without me having to look higher than my feet!

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here is a bunch i found just today wandering a medium size coulee. this was the best clutch i'd found yet (hence the post).

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i was really excited. finding one of these can mean you're just metres away from a HUGE find!!!

this is exactly the sort of fossil batch i'm looking for. you'll probably recognize it from my recent palaeo challenge #2 (which no one got quite right... so here is the right answer).

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the bits i'm interested in are the white and/or orange ones.

to make sure they're what i want, i pick one up for closer inspection. once you have some experience, you can eyeball fossils that are on the ground while you are standing straight up, but even a pro like me will often need to bend over for a closer look.

just as i'd hoped for, dinosaur bone! however if i didn't pick it up there was a chance it could have been petrified wood (or even a REALLY annoying ironstone!). however my closer inspection confirms this clump of fossil were all pieces of dinosaur bones.

now i should have realized that unless you have experience hunting for fossils my palaeo challenge is EVEN harder without a close up look at the site. i took the picture for the challenge while standing up, so the details of those bone fragments were lost.

i'll take you in close so you can see what to look for in the field yourself.

these two pieces are perfect. not only do they preserve the smooth outer bone shell, with its "wood like" grain (note i said wood LIKE, fossil woods' grain is not nice perfect straight line like bone funny enough!). on the edges of these chunks in the photo you can make out the bubbly texture of the inner bone marrow.

another common look of broken bits of dinosaur bone is an almost polished look like these pieces here have.

the orange colour that threw a lot of you off in the palaeo challenge was caused by lichens growing on the bone. these algae/fungus hybrids will start to appear on fossils that are exposed on the surface for a while, and will eventually eat them into dirt (literally!).

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though they're not restricted to just fossils, it is good prospecting practise to look at heavy concentrations of lichen as they tend to grow quick thickly on bone.

these of course are just broken bits of bone though. you're no doubt asking "traumador, why are you so excited about them? you already showed and told us about broken dinosaur bones! you weren't primed about it..."

there are a few differences between these and the bone in my first journal entry.

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1. there are lots of bits of broken dinosaur bones together here

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2. these have not been moved from far away and reburied like my last one.

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3. rather these are just lying on the surface. which means they've only just been washed down the hill recently.

it is that last point that is most important.

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the forces of erosion water, ice, heat, cold, wind, and gravity are all constantly wearing away at not only the rocks of the badlands, but also the fossils contained within them. so when a fossil is exposed to the surface, due to the rock that had been isolating it being eroded away, the bone itself will begin to fall apart into small pieces through the same processes that took away the rock.

which is what i've found here. their broken bits that have nicely washed down to the bottom of the hill in a snow melt or heavy rainstorm. sure they signify a really broken bone somewhere up the hill (not really worth finding just by itself), but where there is one bone often there are more (especially in the case of a desired complete skeleton!).

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the best part is these broken bits not only wash to the bottom of the hill where they are much easier for me to find, but if i follow them up the hill they act just like a bread crumb trail to their source. leading me too...

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whole dinosaur bones!!!

i was very thrilled when, after climbing nearly to the top of a hill, i came up just underneath this bone protruding from the wall.

this is an exciting moment. you could looking at the first visible part of a huge discovery... or at the same time you could be in for a slight let down as it turns out to be just a minor find.

hoisting myself up to the bone i looked in to examine it.

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had i found a complete skeleton?!? or even just a partially articulated bit of bones (articulate being the fancy term for the bones that are together in the way they would have been in the living animal... aka the foot bones connect to the leg bones which themselves connect to the knee bones etc.).

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articulated at all? no, sadly not this time... so a minor let down there. though i shouldn't be surprised. they say it takes about 200 hours of hunting in the badlands to find even a mediocre articulated site. this was only a few days into my expedition.

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it may not have been an articulated skeleton i'd found, but it might have been a really nice bonebed!

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bonebeds are like a garbage dump for fossilized animals. you get only random bones from all sorts of creatures from the prehistoric environment, but seldom do any of the bones came from the same individual animal (and even if they might you can never prove it sadly). they're not great for finding new unknown animals (though it does happen if any of their single bones are truly unique), but bonebeds are great for studying beasts already known to science.

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for example it was bonebeds, similar to this one, that have helped show that duck bill and horned dinosaurs lived in herds. often we find bonebeds that are dominated by 80-90% of the bones being from a single type of animal. if these animals all died together in such numbers (from dozens to thousands) it only makes sense they were probably living together first before they died.

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the other neat thing about bonebeds is that sometimes they can go on for kilometres! meaning that if i went and found this same layer in the hills surrounding this one (which used to be connected till the space between the hills eroded away and separated them) i could very well find that the bonebed carries on there, and so forth for dozens of such hills till the bonebed finally stopped...

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now as i found this bonebed around drumheller i could immediately make a safe guess about the ID of my bonebed's occupants. a closer look at the half broken but still easily identified pulvic bone (that is one of the bones of the hip) confirmed this was a hadrosaur bonebed. most likely edmontosaurus, as most of the bonebeds around drumheller are edmontos.

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i'd need to find some skull bones to confirm that, and around the surface there just weren't any to find. so the bones could have been from any one (or more... as bonebeds aren't always just 1 type of animal) of the many known duck bills from the horseshoe formation. check out my dinosaurs of alberta post for more details on that.

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sadly there weren't any duplicate bones present on the surface. what means i couldn't find 2 of any one type of bone, such as two left femurs or two right wrist bones etc. if i could have, than i could confirm this was a bonebed with more than one animal present, rather than a disarticulated skeleton (disarticulated meaning the bones are scattered and jumbled from how they were in real life) of just one animal.

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a disarticulated skeleton could be a big deal, and be a big discovery. as again it is a skeleton of a whole animal, unlike a bonebed which are just random singular unrelated bones.

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from what i was seeing though it wasn't going to be a great skeleton, even IF it was one. all i had were many random vertebrae and ribs (like this rib pictured above) which are normally common at both skeletal and bonebed sites. the only really unique bones were that pelvic bone and a ulna (lower arm bone). it also looked like a lot of the inital outcrop had been eroded. meaning if it was a skeleton it was already gone...

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my money was on a bonebed though. their way more common around here, and the ulna and the pelvic bone seemed a different scale to each other (to me anyway, but i'm no EXPERT... simply a little experienced). that was good news too. even if a huge chuck of the site had eroded out, a bonebed could easily carry on into the hill.

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i'd report it to the museum, and let someone from there check it out if they were interested.

as sad as it is to say they probably won't be. bonebeds are a dime a dozen around here, and most don't offer anything remarkably different to the rest. that and it takes weeks or months to work a bonebed properly (meaning with the known bonebeds just around drumheller you're looking at about 50-100 years worth of work!).

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with the number of legitimately interesting and new things potentially out here, it is best for the museum to wait for someone like me to find the better fossils sites, and then spend the time on those instead!

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at least this find made for a good journal entry at least, but i'll have to catch you on the next one! i'm moving on past this bonebed...

alberta's dinosaurs

(i will say in advance, sorry if this post is a little chaotic. bloggers formatting has been giving me no end of grief with this post... delaying it by several days, and i've decided to give up. so just imagine it to be nice and well laid out like i'd planned... pleaseeeeee) since i've been looking into the history of alberta's fossil hunting, and about to look for some fossils while i'm at it, i thought maybe it'd be handy to know some of the dinosaurs that have been found around the province. in case i run into some (hopefully!)... and so you're on the same page as me. i will caution this is not a completely comprehensive list, but it'll be really close. _ i'm doing it from memory, seriously... i promise i have no books, as i don't own any in canada anymore (and only 3 back in new zealand... which is where i left them!)... _ so there'll be the odd dinosaur i miss out on. at the same time it'll only be a few, despite my small memory this is something i know really well! _ if you don't believe me just remember who did the badland science camp's talk on the subject... me!!! they wouldn't just let anyone talk to those really smart kids about the subject! _ alberta has a great fossil record of the last 14-16 million years of the cretaceous, meaning any dinosaurs or other organisms we find are among THE last to exist during the mesozoic. _ despite coming from the same general time period and geographic area, these dinosaurs didn't all co-exist at the same time. that's because 15 million years is still a HUGE span of time, and a lot of things changed during it. _ as you'll recall from my last post on the geology of alberta, that big chunk of 15 million years can be broken down into small blocks that we call formations. these aren't just made up to break up the time any which way. the formations mark traceable and important changes that happened here in alberta throughout the end of the cretaceous. some mark changes in climates, environments, and living things. others mark the dramatic change of land being flooded by an ocean, and others the draining of that ocean leading to once more land. _ seriously if you want to learn more about how and why we figure out these formation read the alberta geology post first (same link as the one in the last paragraph... just giving you a second chance to click it is all). _ so let's take a look at these dinosaurs formation by formation. this immediately will help you get an idea of not only which albertan dinosaurs coexisted, but start to see the evolutionary changes that were happening here at the end of the age of dinosaurs. i'm only going to cover layers with dinosaurs, and skip the marine ones... for now. _ 1. Milk River (84 million years ago [mya]- ?mya this is the earliest (as in furthest back in time from the present) record of the cretaceous in alberta. it begins around 84 million years ago, but we don't know for sure exactly when it extends to datewise (layerwise we now where the milk river ends as it is replaced by marine deposits of the Pakowki). it is exposed around the milk river of the southmost part of alberta, hence the name. _ there are dinosaur fossils (as well as other animals) present in this formation, however they have not been extensively collected or studied... until recently. a great deal of emphasis has been placed on increasing our understanding of this early part of the cretaceous by palaeontologists the last 5 years or so. _ as most of these finds have not yet been completely published or even preped yet, most of these dinosaurs haven't been positively identified. _ we know there are hadrosaurs, certatopsians, ankylosaurs, dromaeosaurs, troodontids, ornithomimids, and tyrannosaurids of various types. however as of yet, we don't know exactly what kinds. whether they are new or types already known... 2. Oldman Formation (77-76 mya) the base layers of alberta's most dinosaur rich area, dinosaur provincial park, are made of the oldman formation. the oldest formation that reliable specimens and studies have so far been produced from. at the same time despite DPP's abundance of dinosaurs and other fossils, they do not come from its base layers. the oldman seems to have been an environment with less elements needed for fossilization. _ yet at the same time because the area has been worked so heavily in the last hundred or so years enough discoveries have been made in the oldman that we have a descent fossil record for it. Hadrosaurs gryposaurus- a duckbill first found by george sternberg in 1913, in the oldman formation. it has a confusing history of identification due to its looking very much like kritosaurus. also not helping this IDing has been some palaeontologists trying to group the first ever discovered duckbill, hadrosaurus, into this family as well. _ it was fairly typically of the crest-less hadrosaur, except for its the rather large and "swollen" looking nose. corythosaurus- though this duckbill has been found in the oldman, most of the most spectacular examples of corythosaurus come from the later dinosaur park formation. this does show however it was a long surviving genus. lambeosaurus- again another dinosaur whose remains are found in both the dinosaur park and oldman. Ceratopsians centrosaurus brinkmani- one of the most recently discovered of alberta's dinosaurs was this new unique species of centrosaurus. it differs from later centrosaurs due to the unique ornamentation on its frill. centrosaurus b. was naturally a member of the centrosaurinae, or the short frilled ceratopsians. albertaceratops- found in 2001, this another one of the most recently discovered dinosaurs in alberta. _ albertaceratops was another short frilled ceratopsian (a centrosaurinae), it was a unique amongst this group as the only one to have longer eye horns than that on its nose (it didn't have a nose horn at all... just a little ridge of bone sticking out). chasmosaurus- there was a long frilled ceratopsian (a ceratopsinae) present in the oldman. chasmosaurus would go on into dinosaur park formation. Ankylosaurs euoplocephalus- this one of the longest surviving ankylosaurs was present in the oldman, but went on until the horseshoe canyon. _ Theropods dromiceiomimus- first discovered in 1926, but not recognized as a new type of ornithomimid (it was first thought to be a struthiomimus) until 1972. dromiceiomimus was unique among the ostrich mimics due to its especially large eye size, and long legs. this leg size is evidence this would have been the fastest of dinosaurs, but with no footprints to prove this is just a hunch. daspletosaurus- this was possibly the direct ancestor of us tyrannosaurus rexes, and they were the top predator of the oldman. apart from being about a 1/3 smaller than us t-rexes, daspletosaurs were otherwise as heavily built and proportioned as us. they would survive into the dinosaur park era. charlie sternberg first found daspletosaurus in 1921, but thought it was just a species of gorgosaurus. it wasn't until 1970 that dale russell decided it was different. _ 3. Dinosaur Park Formation (76-74 mya) this is among the most dinosaur rich deposits in the world, and has produced many of the best known of dinosaurs. for the animals that survive into this formation from the oldman, i've done their proper blurb here as most were first found in this formation (i don't remember if any were first found in the oldman). Hadrosaurs brachylophosaurus- a crestless hadrosaur, discovered in 1936, but not worked on till 1956 by charlie sternberg. it had a paddle like plate over the front end of its skull, and a very wide beak for a dinosaur park duckbill. gryposaurus-this duckbill has been found in the dinosaur park formation, but was much more common in the oldman. prosaurolophus- found by barnum brown in 1915, was a fairly non-descript crestless duckbill. apart from a ridge above and in-between the eyes. lambeosaurus-one of the first crested duckbills to have ever been found in the world. first found by lawerence lambe in 1898, but not formerly named till after his death. part of why lambeosaurus was named in honour of canada's first domestic palaeontolgist (a sad reason), but also done so in recognition of his many achievements. two species of lambeosaur are found in dinosaur park. in older books you'll see these as being thought to be male and female of each other. however due to darren tanke's lost quarry project, we now know that these "boys" and "girls" lived at different times, with the girls all coming from the bottom layers of the formation, and the boys coming from the top ones. meaning either they had some clever time travel dating techniques or they were different species. lambeosaurs had very cool crests. one the front end was a squared off circle and behind that a prong sticking out backwards. corythosaurus- this crested duckbill is among the most common large dinosaur in the dinosaur park formation. it is a fairly typical duckbill other than it looks like it has had a dinner plate stuck on the top of its head. _ the first corythosaur was found by barnum brown in 1912. parasaurolophus- this crested hadrosaur is probably the most famous duckbill of them all, but yet one of alberta's rarest. only a couple have ever been found. this has lead to the idea (plus details of the anatomy) to the idea this was a more inland duckbill, that didn't actually live on the flood plains that were dinosaur park in the cretaceous. levi sternberg found the first one ever here in alberta in 1920. however the next year 1921, his father charles found more in new mexico, an area these dinosaurs are commonly found in (though a different species to the alberta ones). Ceratopsians styracosaurus- among the most spectacular of the short frilled ceratopsians. this multi horned (all but the nose horn were on the shield like frill on the rear of the skull). it was first found by charles sternberg in 1913, but barnum brown in 1915 found a rather spectacular specimen in the park as well. centrosaurus- the nose horned, short frilled ceratopsian. lawerence lambe first discovered them in 1904, but they are among the most common fossil remains in the bonebed layers of dinosaur park. these massive bonebeds are currently thought to be the remains of herds of these ceratopsians caught in tropical storms that would cause the ocean to flood the very flat floodplain that was dinosaur park, and bury whole herds of these guys! chasmosaurus-this long frilled ceratopsian was another of lambe's finds, back in 1901. it is notable due to its rather short horns, but mega huge frill (which was so big it needed to two big holes to keep its weight down). pachyrhinosaur-like ceratopsian- the newest alberta dinosaur is one that looks very similar to pachyrhinosaurus, but the specimen was missing its frill. a key feature for IDing it one way or the other as any of the currently known pachyrhino. Pachycephalosaurs stegoceras- the discovery of the complete skeleton of this boneheaded dinosaur by george sternberg in 1923 helped solve one of the biggest dinosaur mysteries of that era. in 1901 lambe had found and named the first bony skull cap, but no one could figure out what sort of animal it had come from. for years this was the only complete pachycephalosaur known, and is still the most intact skeleton for this group. colepiocephale- a newly renamed genus of bonehead (its latin name MEANS knucklehead! how great is that?!?) in 2003. it was first found by levi sternberg in 1945, but he thought it was another stegoceras. there are several more bonehead dinosaurs theoretically from alberta, but due to their incomplete nature palaeontologists are constantly arguing what they are. as of such i'm out of the loop (and as these guys are among my least fav dinos... i don't keep a close eye on them). _ Ankylosaurs edmontonia- this clubless armoured dinosaur (a nodosaurid) is found in the dinosaur park formation, but its would live on into the later horseshoe canyon. the first one was found here in 1915, but was not recognized as being edmontonia until 1928. panoplosaurus-was similar to edmontonia, in that it was covered in armour (like all ankylosaurs) and had spikes along the neck and sides with particularly massive ones above the shoulders. panoplosaur had a different skull structure to edmontonia however which was used to separate the two. euoplocephalus-this is the classic clubbed ankylosaur (partially because so many of them have been found throughout most of the formations of alberta!). _ lambe found the first incomplete remains in 1902, but nearly every museum that received skeletons from the great canadian dinosaur rush ended up with a euoplocephalus (not because they were common in any one formation, but again because they were findable nearly everywhere dinosaur bearing in the province). Theropods chirostenotes- has taken nearly half a century to take form. bits and pieces of this oviraptor had been found throughout the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, but it was not realized they all went together until a complete skeleton was preped in 1988 (though it had been found in 1923). the discovery of chirostenotes was a pretty big deal. not only was it among the first north american oviraptors found (the first if you count when it was found, rather than recognized), but it was further proof for the land bridge connecting north america and asia in the late cretaceous. unnamed therzinosaurid- there have been bits and pieces (especially the trademark finger claws) of a plant eating therzinosaur found at DPP. however not enough of this animal has been found to make a clear ID. needless to say this was yet another asian dinosaur that in the geologic record suddenly just showed up in north america. if not a land bridge, than how? struthiomimus- was the first ever ornithomimid from which a relatively complete skeleton was found. back in 1914, henry osborn wishing for some small dinosaurs for his growing collection of alberta dinosaurs in new york, asked barnum brown to try and find some small theropods. as if in answer to this request (which doesn't usually happen when you go fossil hunting!) brown discovered a complete skeleton! _ since then many more specimens of this dinosaur have been found. it may have been among the most common of small dinosaurs in dinosaur park in the cretaceous (but it is hard to say as small animals don't fossilize well there) as it is the most common for whom fossils are found today. it is also known from the horseshoe canyon formation. _ ornithomimus and dromiceiomimus- both these ostrich mimics were also present in the dinosaur park formation, but their blurbs are elsewhere. troodon-the intelligent raptor relative (but not a true member of) was present in dinosaur park, but its most famous remains are from the horseshoe. so its proper blurb shall wait until than. saurornitholestes- the most common dromaeosaurid in the dinosaur park era by far. its teeth are extremely common at micro fossil sites, and though skeletal remains weren't found till more recent, 1974, it now has more material than any other small predatory theropods (where as the more common ornithomimids didn't eat meat remember). this guy differed from most other north american raptors by being more lightly built, and having a slender skull... very similar to the asian velociraptor hmmm another case of a land bridge... maybe! dromaeosaurus- the first raptor known from good skeletal material found by barnum brown in 1914 in alberta. this however has remained the ONLY skeletal material known. contrary to various TV shows and documentaries, dromaeosaurs never lived with tyrannosaurus or edmontosaurus. it has only been confidently found in the dinosaur park formation (and POSSIBLY, based on some teeth, in a similar timed layer in montana... perhaps!). in fact based on its rarity, despite being the longest known raptor, dromaeosaurus is one of the least understood of this group of dinosaurs. gorgosaurus- this tyrannosaurid was easily the most common large theropod of dinosaur park, and this geologic unit has produced more complete skeletons of this tyrannosaurid than any two other tyrannosaur species combined (other than tarbosaur, who is possibly starting to match gorgosaurus on complete skeletons). gorgosaur was found by charlie sternbergs in 1913. barnum brown and the sternbergs would find many more during the dinosaur rush, and still more have been found since. however based on the argument over whether gorgosaurus is actually an early albertosaurus you might have to sub the first discovery with that of albertosaurs mentioned below. here's my take on the gorgosaurus vs. albertosaurus issue. daspletosaurus- again this heavier built (but otherwise same sized as gorgosaurus) tyrannoaurid was present in the dinosaur park formation as well. this led to the only instance where two large tyrannosaurid species lived in the same environment. it has been speculated that they ate different prey. the heavier daspletosaur possibly favouring the horned ceratopsians, and the lighter gorgosaurus going for hadrosaurs. there isn't really any evidence to support this though (the fact a montanan daspletosaur has been found with an edmontosaur in its gut. which doesn't really seem to make this idea of different prey work if you ask me). gorgosaurus was clearly more common, and so daspletosaurs may have been upland predators who just occasionally wandered down to the flood plain (maybe following upland herbivores like parasaurolophus and stegoceras?). next we travel to drumheller, and the layers i'll be looking at a lot in the next while. Horseshoe Canyon (72-67 mya) Hadrosaurs saurolophus- was the first complete dinosaur skeleton found in canada, by barnum brown in 1911. this first skeleton and the remains of a few other animals buried with it are the only record of this dinosaur in canada. yet an almost identical animal from a similar timeframe existed in cretaceous china. (*cough* land bridge*cough**cough*) despite it being technically a crestless (hadrosaurid, as opposed to the crested lambeosaurids) this duckbill had a shaft of bone sticking off the rear of the skull. though this appears to be a crest (which in a way i guess it is), scientifically the crests of the crested duckbills were elaborate hollow structures. saurolophus' spike was just a solid spike of bone... edmontosaurus- the classic duckbilled duckbill. it has a VERY complicated history with earlier discoveries in america during the bonewars (getting more than 10 names during that time). however a complete skeleton found by levi sternberg in 1912 just downriver from drumheller would go on to become the type specimen for this dinosaur. since than, MANY more edmontosaurs have been found. in fact, with no competition, this is the single most common dinosaur to find in the horseshoe canyon formation, and possibly alberta (just due to the number of them you find around drumheller... dinosaur park has so much more variety than the horseshoe, so it doesn't produce any single animal in such numbers!). edmontosaurs was the classic crestless duckbill build, with a massive broad duck like beak on the end of its snout. hypacrosaurus-was the token crested duckbill of the horseshoe, and the last crested hadrosaur to exist in north america. found in 1910 by barnum brown, it remained a poorly represented and understood species till more were found in montana, and a huge discovery in alberta. despite the abundance of dinosaurs in the province, eggs were completely unknown from it for most of the 20th century. until in 1987 phil currie discovered a hypacrosaur nest site near devil's coulee. Hypsilophodons _ parksosaurus- a later surviving hypsilophodont first found by william parks in 1926, but he felt it was a species of thescelosaurus. charlie sternberg reassessed this in 1940, found it was a different animal, and so renamed it in honour of its (sadly passed on by this time) discoverer. Ceratopsians pachyrhinosaurus- this bony nosed ceratopsian was the last of the short frills to exist. it was also the most common ceratopsian to exist during this time in the northern areas of the province. a massive bonebed in pipestone creek has preserved the remains of dozens and dozens of these animals, including skulls of nearly every growth stage of this animal. which has shed huge light on how short frill ceratopsians all looked growing up. which was identical! they seriously all looked the same until just before adulthood when they would start to grow and develop their unique frill and head ornamentation (such as horns and bone bumps). the first pachyrhino was found by charlie sternberg in 1946 near drumheller. however the rich northern deposits weren't found near grande prairie till 1972, by local teacher al lakusta. arrhinoceratops- this long frilled ceratopsian is known from only a single skull found in 1923. it is unusual for having a very puny nose horn, that was so small it was thought to not exist when the specimen was named in 1926. anchiceratops- it is known from a few specimens, all of which are found near marine (aka ocean) sediments. indicating this long frilled ceratopsian preferred coastal environments and plants. the first skull was found by barnum brown in 1912. other significant specimens were found by charlie sternberg in 1924 and 1925. eotriceratops- one of the most recently discovered albertan dinosaurs. so far only the giant skull of this massive short frilled ceratopsian is known. based on it, this animal appears to be a very close ancestor of triceratops (hence the name, with the latin eo meaning "dawn of"). another interesting thing about this specimen was that it was found in a coal seam. a rock layer that normally doesn't preserve fossils. _ Ankylosaurs euoplocephalus- the long lived ankylosaur made it up to the horseshoe, before disappearing forever... Theropods ornithomimus- was a fairly typical ornithomimid, and the first known (from finds in america by marsh during the bonewar). the first mostly complete skeleton of an ornithomimus was found in 1917 in the horseshoe canyon formation, but is now also known from the dinosaur park and scollard formations as well. the most complete skeleton of an ornithomimid ever found was a ornithomimus from the dinosaur park formation, that even had the delicate beak along the mouth preserved (confirming these dinosaur had bird-like beaks). troodon- famous for being one of the smartest of all dinosaurs, it has a very complex history and was a mystery for a long time, as it was named based solely on teeth. alberta's contribution to the troodon sage was solving the questions once and for all. a complete-ish skeleton was found in 1969 (at the time called stenonychosaurus) which would eventually be realized to be the owner of the troodon teeth. among the most famous specimens of troodon found were those by jack horner while out surveying the site the tyrrell museum was being built on with phil currie. among these was an intact braincase. the one upon which currie would do the famous study proving the relatively large brain of troodon. atrociraptor- is the newest alberta theropod, was this short snouted and tall skulled dromaeosaur. due to these features it is affectionately known around the tyrrell as the bulldog raptor. it is so far only known from a single skull, but its teeth are very common in drumheller bonebeds showing that it was probably very abundant (the horseshoe has a very poor fossil record of intact smaller animals. you only get them in the form of micro fossils such as teeth). albertosaurus- was the largest predator of the horseshoe era. i have a nice detailed look at this tyrannosaur here. it was first found in 1884 by joseph tyrrell. further west up the red deer river around the town's of huxley and rumsey you find layer from the very end of the dinosaurs' reign. including those that i was found in... The Scollard Formation (67-64 mya) this formation is rather fossil sparse compared to the others of the province (except perhaps the milk river), and has only produced a few remains. Hypsilophodons thescelosaurus- was fairly large for a hypsilophodontid. the best known specimen, and nearly complete skeleton was found in alberta. a new skeleton is being worked on by my good friend caleb brown, but he hasn't published this yet. so i'm not allowed to say anything more! Hadrosaurs anatotitan?- remains of a very large crestless hadrosaur have been found in the scollard, but not enough for identification. they could either be of the large anatotitian from america or (as some scientists feel anatotitian is just an) edmontosaur. until more complete remains are found we can't be sure. these animals were definitely rare in the area at the time compared to how common edmontosaurus was in the horseshoe... Ceratopsians leptoceratops- was a small primitive ceratopsian, that ironically lived alongside (or i guess technically underneath) the last and most advanced of the horned dinosaurs. it was the first small ceratopsian to ever be found, by barnum brown in 1910. however this first specimen (which was damaged) was put to shame by the discovery of 3 skeletons by charlie sternberg in 1947 just outside of drumheller. one of these 3 skeletons is 100% complete (a very rare find!) and the only such skeleton for a ceratopsian known! triceratops- the most famous of ceratopsians, was present in alberta. it was one of the long frilled chasmosaurinae, but this is hard to tell based on its frill (which is among the shortest of this subdivision of the horned dinosaurs). triceratops had long been known from the united states since 1887, and even from neighbouring canadian province saskatchewan as of 1921. it wasn't till 1946 that charlie sternberg finally found them here in alberta. they were the most common of large herbivores in the scollard. _ Anyklosaurs ankylosaurus-first discovered in montana by barnum brown in 1906. when brown came up north to alberta a few years later, he would discover the most complete skull of this the last armoured dinosaur in 1911. it apart from this one spectacular early find has proven very rare otherwise in alberta. Theropods ornithomimus- the classic ostrich mimic would survive right till the end... tyrannosaurus- known in many ways better from finds in the states, but to me the alberta finds are the most important. as the t-rex from alberta was MY mother! the story of how charlie sternberg found here in 1946 is told here. the second tyrannosaur was found in the rockie mountains in 1981 by a bunch of crowsnest pass high skool students. this was my aunt black beauty.