The shoreline where the fossil was found is now covered by landslides, so it is very fortunate that the Washington State Parks and the Burke Museum were able to excavate the fossil when they did! The following month, a crew of Burke paleontologists returned to Sucia Island with permits to excavate the fossil so it could be studied. Since it was embedded in rock, they took photos, recorded the location and contacted our partners at Washington State Parks. But our keen-eyed paleontologists could tell it was a small section of exposed bone. Most people would have walked right by it. While scanning the ground for ammonites, they spotted this: On April 10, 2012, two Burke Museum research associates were at Sucia Island State Park with a collecting permit for fossil ammonites-sea creatures with spiral-shaped shells that lived at the same time as dinosaurs. As the Washington State Museum of Natural History and Culture, we're so excited to display Washington's first dinosaur fossil in our lobby and share the discovery with you! The road to discovering Washington’s first dinosaur fossil. Christian Sidor and University of Washington graduate student Brandon Peecook describe the find in the journal PLOS ONE.
Earthquakes and other geologic forces that constantly reshape our planet moved the rocks north to their present-day location.īurke Museum Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology Dr. How much further south is a topic of scientific debate, with locations ranging between present day Baja California, Mexico, and northern California. During that time, the rocks that today form Sucia Island were likely further south. The fossil is approximately 80 million years old and is from the Late Cretaceous period. It was found along the shores of Sucia Island State Park in the San Juan Islands. The fossil is a partial left thigh bone of a theropod dinosaur, the group of two-legged, meat-eating dinosaurs that includes Velociraptor, Tyrannosaurus rex and modern birds.
0 kommentar(er)
