Dinosaur curator said it was a miracle that crews noticed the fossils and stopped
According to DMNS Curator of Dinosaurs Joe Sertich, the dinosaur has been laying here for at least 66 million years.
It wasn’t your typical construction site find.
An unmarked utility or underground storage tank? Sure, that’s not surprising. But dinosaur fossils aren’t exactly par for the course, Saunders Construction project manager Aaron Pollick said.
“When they first found it, just the nature of what they found, I think there was a lot of excitement,” said Pollick, who was not on site at the time but has been involved since. “Not necessarily knowing what the exact next step was going to be was a challenge. Certainly, it’s not a common occurrence for something like this to be found.”
An operator was scooping dirt Aug. 25 when an on-site geotechnical engineer — someone who reviews soil conditions — told him to stop. The engineer noticed that there was something inconsistent with the surrounding claystone and sand. Brushing off the dirt and cleaning the area with water, the crews knew what they were seeing wasn’t normal.
But Saunders Construction doesn’t have an action plan in place for when crews stumble across a 66-million-year-old fossil. The crews quarantined the area, which will eventually be a weight room at the upcoming Fire and Police Substation at East 132nd Avenue and Quebec Street, and made sure construction equipment stayed clear, Pollick said. A biologist contracted by the city of Thornton recommended a local paleontologist, who stopped by Sunday to confirm that they were looking at dinosaur bones.
On Monday, Denver Museum of Nature & Science dinosaur curator Joe Sertich quickly determined that, more specifically, it was a triceratops. The museum started excavating Wednesday, Pollick said.