Dinosaur fossil found beneath Denver Museum car parking zone

by Redazione , printed on 24/07/2025
Categories: Archaeology
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During work on a geothermal plant, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science has unearthed a 67.5-million-year-old fossil at a depth of 763 toes. It is the oldest and deepest dinosaur fossil ever found throughout the metropolis limits.

An sudden discover has caught the eye of the worldwide scientific group: the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (Denver, Colorado) has introduced that it has found a dinosaur fossil simply beneath the car parking zone of its headquarters inside Denver’s City Park. The discovery occurred in January throughout a geothermal drilling mission. The work was geared toward evaluating the potential of changing the present pure fuel heating system with a geothermal system as a part of a transition to renewable and sustainable power sources.

At that point, the museum workforce determined to mix the technical intervention with a scientific investigation of the geological node, with the intent of contributing to the understanding of the construction of the Denver Basin. However, the initiative, which started as a supporting research, led to a very sudden end result: the invention of a fossil relationship again to the Late Cretaceous, recognized at a depth of about 232 meters under the floor. According to the info that emerged, it’s the oldest and deepest dinosaur fossil ever found throughout the metropolis’s city boundaries.

“This is a scientifically and historically exciting discovery for both the Museum and the larger Denver community,” mentioned James Hagadorn, curator of geology on the Museum. “This fossil comes from a time just before the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs and offers a rare window into the ecosystem that once existed just beneath modern Denver.”

The discover, a partial bone, has been recognized as a vertebra belonging to a herbivorous dinosaur. Patrick O’Connor, the museum’s director of Earth and Space Sciences, was a part of the workforce that analyzed the fossil and confirmed that it belonged to the Late Cretaceous period, estimating its age at about 67.5 million years. The scientific research on the invention was printed within the peer-reviewed journal Rocky Mountain Geology, a reference for the educational group within the subject of earth sciences.

“This may be the most unusual dinosaur discovery I’ve ever been a part of,” O’Connor mentioned. “Not only is it exceptionally rare to find any fossils as part of a drilling project, but the discovery provided an exceptional collaborative opportunity for the Museum’s earth science team to produce a paper led by Denver Museum of Nature & Science postdoctoral scholar Dr. Holger Petermann.”

Currently, the fossil bone is on public show throughout the museum’s everlasting exhibit entitled Discovering Teen Rex, the place it’s introduced within the context of current paleontological discoveries within the area. The placement within the exhibition permits guests to take a better take a look at the discover and perceive its scientific relevance, notably for understanding the deep geology of the city space.

The total geothermal drilling mission is a part of a Colorado state-funded program geared toward selling the power transition. In truth, in 2024, the museum was awarded a $250,000 grant by means of the Geothermal Energy Grant Program sponsored by Governor Jared Polis and administered by the Colorado Energy Office. The funding is an element of a bigger $7.7 million state plan designed to cut back greenhouse fuel emissions and incentivize the adoption of fresh power programs. In the case of the museum, the grant helps to evaluate the feasibility of a geothermal plant to warmth and funky the ability in a sustainable method.

According to Bob Raynolds, a longtime affiliate in Earth science analysis on the museum, the mission supplied outcomes far past expectations. For Raynolds, the invention of the fossil, which occurred within the context of an intervention geared toward power effectivity, represents a chance to develop paleontological information of the Denver Basin. In explicit, the fossil fuels the chance that different comparable finds should still be hidden underground within the metropolis, beneath buildings, roads and areas which have been urbanized for many years.

“In my 35 years at the Museum, we’ve never had an opportunity like this-to study the deep geological layers beneath our feet with such precision. That this fossil came here, in City Park, is nothing short of magical,” claims Reynolds.

The discover can be a concrete instance of how environmental tasks can intersect with scientific analysis exercise, producing synergistic outcomes. In this case, the geotechnical research produced knowledge that was helpful each for the museum’s power transition and for in-depth research of city stratigraphy and paleontology.

Dinosaur fossil found beneath Denver Museum car parking zone

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