Small fossils, big stories
Although they may not look like much, small bits of fossils from places called microsites contain a wealth of information. Microsites are spots where fossils from many different animals have accumulated. They can contain bones from frogs, salamanders, lizards, crocodiles, birds, mammals, and dinosaurs. By studying these microsites, palaeontologists can better understand what kinds of animals would have been living in a single area at a certain point in time. The Grande Prairie region contains numerous microsites, and museum researchers are currently sorting and identifying the fossils from different locations.
Dinosaur skins
The Wapiti Formation not only preserves the hard bones of dinosaurs, but also sometimes preserves the fossil skin of these animals as well. Former museum palaeontologist Dr. Phil Bell recently described a duck-billed dinosaur fossil from the area that had skin impressions of a large, rooster-like comb on top of its head, a feature never seen in dinosaurs like that before. Other research is continuing on the fossil skin impressions found with other dinosaurs from the area.
How does a dinosaur grow?
One of the best known fossil resources in the Grande Prairie region is the large and dense horned dinosaur bone bed found at Pipestone Creek. Bone beds can play an important role in helping us to understand how dinosaurs may have grown through time. By taking thin sections through bones, palaeontologists can observe approximately how old different sizes of dinosaurs were, to see how quickly they grew and how and when they developed their distinctive features. Currie Museum palaeontologists, working with researchers from the University of Alberta and the Royal Tyrrell Museum, are busy sectioning and studying as many fossils as they can.
That’s not a dinosaur
Recently some of the best preserved specimens, and most interesting fossils, to come out of the Grande Prairie region have not been dinosaurs at all, but other animals such as lizards and turtles. In 2010, two new lizards from Kleskun Hill, just east of Grande Prairie, were described , and in the past several field seasons, palaeontologists from the museum have collected numerous turtle fossils from the area. Turtle fossils are very poorly known from areas north of Edmonton, with only a small handful of records to date. Understanding where these animals lived is important to reconstructing the climates and geography of the region, as well as North America, during the Late Cretaceous.