Badlands along the Red Deer River, 48 kilometres northeast of Brooks and 220 east of Calgary, that are one of the richest dinosaur fossil grounds in the world: 58 dinosaur species found here, more than 500 specimens removed and shown in museums around the globe, and nearly 500 species of life in all, from microscopic fern spores to large meat-eating dinosaurs. Most of the articulated skeletons come from the Dinosaur Park Formation, laid down 76.5 to 74.8 million years ago by rivers flowing to an inland sea. The park was created in 1955 to protect the beds, with Roy Fowler, a farmer and amateur fossil hunter, as its first warden, and it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. Until 1985 every find had to be shipped to museums in Toronto, Ottawa, New York or Chicago. The visitor centre has a fossil preparation lab, and nearby stands the cabin of John Ware, a Black cowboy important to Alberta’s ranching history.
Centrosaurus, Gorgosaurus, Parasaurolophus and 55 more dinosaurs · Late Cretaceous, 76.5-74.8 mya
This ground is protected. Photograph it, record it, leave it where it lies. On US federal land the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act 2009 makes collecting vertebrate fossils an offence, and penalties are real.
Alberta
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