WorldWide Drilling Resource

Grounds for Discovery Compiled by the Editorial Staff of WorldWide Drilling Resource ® Thousands of cubic feet of soil, grav- el, and bedrock are excavated in Alberta, Canada, every year. These industrial construction activities will sometimes uncover fossils, prompting palaeontolo- gists to work alongside companies to excavate and preserve important speci- mens. The Royal Tyrrell Museum’s new exhibit, Grounds for Discovery, intro- duces visitors to some of these incredi- ble fossils. Before being assembled into something with the appearance of a dinosaur at the museum, most dinosaur fossils look to the casual observer like nothing more than a common rock. However, one fossil on display at the museum is so wel l preserved it resembles a 3-D statue. In March 2011, Shawn Funk was excavating with a mechanical backhoe in Alberta’s Millenium Mine, when he hit something harder than the surrounding rock. After taking a closer look at the hard mass struck by the backhoe, he discovered something he had never seen before - rows of sandy brown disks ringed in gunmetal gray stone. The dinosaur fossil he found weighed 2500 pounds and was soon shipped to the museum, where technicians scraped extraneous rock from the fossilized bone, allowing experts to examine the specimen. They expected the fossil to be an aquat- ic dinosaur, particularly the common fossil of a plesiosaur. In years long ago, a vast sea covered most of the province, so every fossil discovered had been aquatic including the carnivorous reptile, ichthyosaurs, which was the first fossil discovered by a heavy equipment operator in Alberta 17 years earlier. To the surprise of everyone, the well-preserved dinosaur fossil turned out to be a land dweller. The fossil was the snout-to-hips segment of a nodosaur, which was a heavy herbi- vore roaming around during the cre- taceous period. The nodosaur would have walked on four legs, and likely resembled a cross between a lizard and l ion, but covered in scales. Unlike other similar types of dinosaur, it lacked a bony club at the end of its tail; instead, it used armor plates, thick knobs, and two 20-inch spikes along its armored side for protection. How did a dinosaur which lived on land wind up fossilized in an area covered by the sea at the time? Scientists theorize the nodosaur was drinking at the river’s edge when it was swept out to sea by a flood. The armor acted like the hull of a ship as the winds carried the carcass along until it burst and sank to the bottom of the sea at the location which would become a mine many years later. Minerals quickly settled into its skin, armor, and on the cradle of its back, preserving the dead nodosaur in its real-life form as mounds of rock piled up atop it over the eons lead- ing up to its discovery at the mine. "Staff at the Royal Tyrrell Museum and our colleagues at the Royal Alberta Museum have been working for several decades to educate industry on the impor- tance of preserving and protecting fossils uncovered by industrial activities," said Executive Director Andrew Neuman. Other fossils showcased in the exhibit include a new species of a pantodont, a rare early mammal, found during road construction; and a mosasaur found at the Korite Mine in southern Alberta whose spectacular preservation sheds light on marine reptile behavior. The nodosaur exhibit, courtesy of Royal Tyrrell Museum. New & Used Bits, HDD Bits & Tools, Drag Bits & Wings, Bolt-On Drag Bits, Reverse Circulation Tools, Hole Openers, Claw Bits, Stabilizers, Subs, Custom Tooling & Welding, Hammer Bits, Drill Collars, Pipe Wipers, and Drill Pipe. Office: (661) 834-4348 Rod Henderson / Eran Henderson 661-201-6259 • 661-330-0790 sales@bitcobits.com www.bitcoinc.us 12 FEBRUARY 2018 WorldWide Drilling Resource ®