Museum discovers rare 67-million-year-old dinosaur bone under its own parking lot

A dinosaur museum made a remarkable discovery in its own parking lot while analyzing geothermal heating potential.

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science in Colorado discovered a fossil bone more than 750 feet under the ground, The Associated Press (AP) reported. 

James Hagadorn, the museum’s curator of geology, said the find is “super rare,” according to AP.

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“Finding a dinosaur bone in a core is like hitting a hole in one from the moon,” said Hagadorn. 

“It’s like winning the Willy Wonka factory. It’s incredible.”

Using a bore five centimeters wide, museum officials discovered the fossil believed to be from a vertebra of a smallish, plant-eating dinosaur.

The dinosaur lived in the late Cretaceous period, around 67.5 million years ago, AP reported.

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Officials also discovered fossilized vegetation in the bore hole near the bone.

“I would love to dig a 763-foot hole in the parking lot to excavate that dinosaur, the rest of it. But I don’t think that’s going to fly because we really need parking,” Hagadorn said.

Patrick O’Connor, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, told AP this may be Denver’s deepest and oldest find yet.

“This animal was living in what was probably a swampy environment that would have been heavily vegetated at the time,” said O’Connor.

Thomas Williamson, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in Albuquerque, told AP he guesses the find is a surprise.

“Scientifically it’s not that exciting,” said Williamson.

The fossil is now on display to the public at the museum. 

Only two similar finds have been noted in bore hole samples anywhere in the world, not to mention on the grounds of a dinosaur museum, according to museum officials, AP noted.

In January, a “dinosaur highway” containing nearly 200 tracks was discovered in a limestone quarry in southern England.

The “highway” dates back 166 million years.