MEETING A GIANT OF THE DINOSAUR AGE (Via Its Fossil Remains)

Giant Sea Reptiles of the Dinosaur Age. At the Royal Tyrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta

In May 2023 I visited the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Canada, the most amazing display of dinosaur fossils I have ever seen. (See my blogpost, June 19, 2023, for more about the exhibits.) I was especially interested in the room containing the remains of Shonisaurus, the giant sea reptile that is the on the cover of my book Giant Sea Reptiles of the Dinosaur Age (Clarion Books, 2007.)

I love learning about dinosaurs and what the world was like when they were alive. My book, Giant Sea Reptiles of the Dinosaur Age, looks at the diversity of large reptiles that once inhabited the world’s oceans. Like the dinosaurs, they all became extinct 65 million years ago. We know about them today from their fossil remains.

Opening pages of Giant Sea Reptiles of the Dinosaur Age

On my recent trip to the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada I was thrilled to see up close the remains of Shonisaurus sikanniensis, the huge ichthyosaur that I wrote about in the opening pages of the book. It fills an entire room at the museum. Here's what I wrote:

Fossil skeleton of Shonisaurus sikanniensis.

Two hundred and twenty million years ago, in waters that covered what is now western Canada, a huge marine reptile cruised the shallow seas. Propelling itself with flat, flipper-like limbs, the 70-foot long animal hunted for shellfish and other small ocean animals, which it sucked into its long, toothless snout and swallowed. This fearsome creature was Shonisaurus sikanniensis, a species of ichthyosaur, one of several types of large sea reptiles that inhabited the world’s oceans in the Dinosaur Age.

The fossil remains of Shonisaurus sikanniensis were first discovered in 1991 when a hiker in northern British Columbia spotted some big fossil bones eroding out of the banks of the Sikanni Chief River. He reported his find to the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology, in Drumheller, Alberta, where one of the curators, Dr. Elizabeth Nicholls, was an expert on prehistoric sea reptiles. She visited the site and was amazed by what she saw. The bones were bigger than those of any known marine reptile, and, incredibly, most of the skeleton was intact. The only missing parts were the hind limbs. Over the course of three summers, the fossil skeleton was dug out of the ground and transported to the museum, where it was studied and prepared for exhibit. Every part of the animal proved to be huge. The massive skull weighed more than one and a half tons, and the largest vertebrae, which measured nearly 11 inches across, were the size of dinner plates. In 2006, the giant skull of Shonisaurus sikanniensis went on display at the museum. Along with the rest of the skeleton, it will help answer questions about the appearance and lifestyle of this giant prehistoric predator and why it grew so big.

As Elizabeth Nicholls is quoted in the museum display: "The world we live in right now is just a blink in the history of life on our planet. 220 million years ago there was a tremendous diversity of life that we know so little about."

Giant Sea Reptiles of the Dinosaur Age is illustrated with beautiful detailed watercolor paintings by Laurie Caple. The book is no longer available in print, but you can look for it in your local library.  It will introduce you to some of the most amazing creatures that ever swam in the oceans the world.

At the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta, Canada

 

 

THE ROYAL TYRELL MUSEUM, Drumheller, Alberta, Canada, a Prehistoric Treasure Trove

Royal Tyrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta, Canada

In early May, Art and I were in Canada, landing in Calgary, then driving about an hour and a half across the Alberta wheat fields to the town of Drumheller, located in the Canadian Badlands, where some of the world’s most impressive dinosaur fossils have been found. Our goal was to visit the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology, a treasure trove of fossils from the Dinosaur Age.

Dinosaur fossils at the Royal Tyrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta, Canada

After buying our tickets at the museum entrance, we followed signs to the first room, which we found filled with life size models of dinosaurs and an introduction to life in Cretaceous Alberta. We felt as if we had stepped into another world.

Cretaceous Alberta. Seventy million years ago, eastern Alberta was warmer and wetter than it is today and was teeming with wildlife—dinosaurs of all sorts of shapes and sizes!

Dinosaurs lived from about 230 to 64 million years ago, during the Mesozoic Era.

A visit to the museum is a trip through time—3.9 billion years of evolution. 

While some skeletons are displayed in life-like poses, assembled as they would have been in the living animal---

Camarasaurus. The mounting of the skeletons in real-life poses recreates the drama of life in the past.

--or even as whole skeletons as they appeared when first discovered---

This T. rex skeleton is known as “black beauty". The bones became darkened by the element manganese during fossilization.

--it is more typical for fossil bones to be scattered, needing to be reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle.

A typical bonebed.

And not only are there fossils of dinosaurs at the museum, but also of plants, insects, fish, amphibians, birds, other reptiles.

Fossil impression of an early bird Confuciousornis sanctus (125-120 mya) from Liaoning Province China. Donated by the Chinese Academy of Science.

While most exhibits are just to look at, some invite participation. Standing next to this Camarasaurus hind limb, I look miniscule. In real life Camarasaurus grew to be 60 feet long and weighed 32 tons.

Camarasaurus right hind limb.

Albertosaurus sarcophagus hand--and my hand!

The remains of Borealopelta markmitchelli, found at a mine north of Fort McMurray, are of the best-preserved armored dinosaur in the world.  This dinosaur is named after Mark Mitchell, who worked on the specimen to prepare it for study and exhibit.  Analysis of pigments found with the skeleton suggest that the dinosaur was reddish-brown in real life.

Borealopelta markmitchelli

Most of the fossils on exhibit at the Tyrell Museum have been found in Canada, but some are from other places. A slab of fossilized ferns from a coal mine in Pennsylvania is mounted at the entrance to the Cretaceous Garden, a greenhouse with ferns, cycads, and other plants typical of the Dinosaur Age.

Ancient ferns preserved in coal.

Every day scientists are learning new things about dinosaurs. The large flat plates along the spine of Stegosaurus were probably used for display and species recognition, but traces of blood vessels suggest they may also have been used to help regulate body temperature.

Stegosaurus. This slow-moving, plant-eating dinosaur was about 20-25 feet long and weighed 2-5 tons.

 

Shonisaurus skeleton.

One whole room of the museum is devoted to the giant fossil of a sea reptile called Shonisaurus, the biggest and best-preserved giant sea reptile fossil ever found. I wrote about its discovery in my book Giant Sea Reptiles of the Dinosaur Age. It was a thrill to meet it in person--and to see all the other amazing fossils that fill the museum. (You can read more about Shonisaurus in a separate blog post at my Art and Books blog.)

The path through the museum winds its way through many rooms (including some on the second level) finally exiting through the gift shop. Among the many souvenirs for sale I was pleased to see a large selection of children's books about dinosaurs and the prehistoric world. We visited on a Saturday afternoon and the museum was filled with families of dinosaur enthusiasts. As we left the last room of the museum we were reminded of the importance of learning about the Earth's past:

Understanding ancient life and the circumstances in which it flourished or died, helps us recognize our place in nature, and how our decisions affect all life on Earth.

Royal Tyrell Museum seen from viewing platform.

During our visit we spent several hours in the museum, pausing for lunch in the museum cafeteria. We ate inside but on a warmer day one can sit on the patio overlooking a pond. At the end of the day, before going back to our car, we climbed the stairs to the top of the hill across from the museum for a panoramic view of the Red Deer River Valley. The next morning we returned for a hike around the Badlands Interpretive Trail and a visit to the hoodoos. (See my blog post of May 15, 2023.)

To plan a visit to the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology, visit the museum website.

Daspletosaurus skull.

A TRIP THROUGH TIME: HOODOOS AND FOSSILS in the Badlands of Alberta Canada

Hoodoos, near Drumheller, Alberta, Canada

Over the eons the Red Deer River has cut a valley into the Alberta plains in Western Canada, revealing layers of rock going back to dinosaur times. Wind and rain have carved some of these rocks into giant mushroom shapes called hoodoos when the upper layer of rock erodes more slowly than the layer beneath. 

Stairways lead to viewing platforms for the hoodoos.

In early May, my husband Art and I visited Alberta, getting a close look at some of the hoodoos and taking a self-guided geology walk near the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller.

Alberta wheat fields.

To get to Drumheller we drove an hour and a half from Calgary across the Alberta wheat fields—an endless vista of golden plains dotted with the occasional silo or homestead. Then suddenly, just before arriving at the town of Drumheller, the road plunged down into the Red Deer River valley, almost as if the earth had suddenly cracked open to show us the history of its insides.

Each layer of rock is a story from the past. White sandstone was once sand at the bottom of a river. Grey-brown layers were once silt and mud. Black is coal, formed by the remains of plants. Chemical reactions in the buried sediments form the dark iron-stones.

The Red Deer River Valley was formed by floodwaters from melting glaciers during the last Ice Age, 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, and it has been eroding ever since.

Signs with history of the area are posted throughout the valley.

The black layers of the rock walls are coal. The coal mines that once drew people to this valley are no longer operating. Other layers are filled with dinosaur bones and other fossils of the Dinosaur Age. The fossil discoveries in Alberta have been spectacular and many are on display at the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller. (The museum will be the subject of another blogpost.) 

A map of the trail and location of interpretive signs.

But just outside the museum is the Badlands Interpretive Trail, a one-kilometer loop walk that provides a close look at the local geology and information about the area--a good introduction or follow-up to visiting the museum.

Crocuses blooming along the trail are a sign of spring.

The climate of the Red Deer River in the late Cretaceous, 72 million years ago, was warm and moist, like Florida today. Today, the valley is seasonally warm and semi-arid. On the day we visited, in late May, the weather was cool and overcast, ideal for taking a walk.

Along the trail numbered signs explained what we were seeing.

These small boulders made of igneous rock were brought from elsewhere and dropped by a melting glacier.

Hoodoos like these on the museum trail are found throughout the badlands.

This fossilized tree stump from a giant redwood was part of a forest that once grew here.

Most of Alberta’s dinosaur remains are found in the Badlands and river valleys where Cretaceous-aged sediments are exposed. Today, wind, rainfall, and snow melt continue to erode the badlands, exposing more fossils with each passing season. We did not see any fossil remains on our walk, but we could imagine what the Earth was like millions of years ago when dinosaurs made Alberta their home.

Walking the dinosaur trail.