An excavation team in southern Colorado has unearthed two dinosaur fossils. They belong to a longneck sauropod dinosaur, according to the Royal Gorge Regional Museum & History Center in Cañon City.
The discovery was originally made by someone who “stumbled on” one of the fossils and reported the find to the Bureau of Land Management. So far it hasn’t been revealed exactly where the bones were found but it is presumably in Fremont County.
Sauropods are plant-eating, four-legged dinosaurs with long necks and tails.
The excavation team was put together by the museum, the BLM and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
After the fossils are revealed to the public on Jan. 21, museum staff and members of the Western Interior Paleontological Society will be working to prepare and preserve them in the museum’s program room. Visitors to the museum will be able to “observe our trained volunteers in action prepping the fossils.”
An individual who was out hiking on public lands in recent months stumbled across what was believed to be a dinosaur fossil and reported it to the Bureau of Land Management.
They are believed to be between 145 and 150 million years old.
“Being a geologist, it’s also important to know where these came from as far as what exact layer it came out of, how old that rock is, what type of rock it is,” Broussard said
The last major fossil discovery in the Royal Gorge Region happened in 1992 with the excavation of Ms. Spike (as known as the Small Stegosaurus) and Tony’s Tree in 1998.
With these two newly unearthed fossils, the museum now has the exciting opportunity to offer an up-close look at how dinosaur fossils are prepared and preserved.
After the preparation work is completed, the fossils will be permanently stored and displayed at the Royal Gorge Regional Museum & History Center.