After a decade of drought for mosasaurs in Morden, researchers at the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre have discovered not one, but two.
They were discovered a few weeks later in June by the center’s lab and box technician, Gerry Peters.
The first was discovered through a systematic search in a vast area, according to Peters, rich in fossils.
The moment was most commonly discovered by accident, when Peters dug a drainage ditch with heavy machinery in a domain where fossils were suspected.
“The blade scraped off a fossil, exposing only the top, and without delay I saw another color. The fossils are a different color than the surrounding rock,” Peters recalled in an interview with CTV News Winnipeg.
Gerry Peters took a photograph of the moment he discovered the mosasaur in June while digging a drainage ditch. (Source: Gerry Peters/Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre)
Peters knew they were the vertebrae of a mosasaur, an extinct organization of predatory marine lizards that lived in the Cretaceous period about 80 million years ago.
The center already houses a Guinness World Record holder for the largest mosasaur on display, named Bruce. It was discovered in 1974 and still extends in the middle today.
But it had been about a decade since the outlet discovered a new mosasaur to add to its collection, let alone two in the span of a few weeks.
Bruce holds the Guinness World Record for mosasaur on display. (Source: Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre)
Peters, aided by a cascade of museum visitors eager to play paleontologist of the day, excavated the first mosasaur over the summer, eventually extracting more than 300 bones.
With winter approaching, Peters planned to hang up the chisel and brush and leave the mosasaur excavation for the new year. But considerations about spring runoff prompted a bombing raid in the fall to excavate the rest of the skeleton.
“We got rid of those who were more or less exposed and in danger of being swept away,” he said.
“We ended up with about 3 dozen bones, most commonly vertebrae or vertebral tail vertebrae, very close to the tail, and at the same time, a lot of pieces of the skull, teeth and pieces of the jaw and that kind of thing. . »
Hope is in the rest of the mosasaurs next year.
(Source: Canadian Fossil Discovery Center)
During the bloodless months, Peters will begin preparing the bones he has excavated for examination and demonstration. The entire procedure can take two to three years.
As for the new mosasaur names, Peters says they call them Baratheon and Stark, a nod to the popular “Game of Thrones” series of books and TV shows, but they’re not yet set in stone.
They’re in Bruce’s culture, which is based on a Monty Python sketch.
Overall, Peters says the double discoveries have been very exciting.
“After locating a single bone, I make a small template. In this case, I’ve been dancing most of the day because it’s so exciting to notice what seems, more or less, to be a complete skeleton. It’s weird.
Gerry Peters races to remove dirt from a huge mosasaur fossil recently discovered in the Morden area (Aug. 2, 2023. Source: Jon Hendricks/CTV News).
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