Palaeontology
Monthly Archive: December Pala
The Making of Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants from Gondwana
Contributed by Peter May, President, Research Casting International Ltd.
We held a press preview day at our shop last week to launch the ROM’s major summer exhibition – Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants from Gondwana. Of the 17 dinosaur skeletons to be exhibited, ten are pretty well finished; just final paint to be applied.
Opening a Can of Ancient Worms
David M. Rudkin, Assistant Curator in Invertebrate Palaeontology, will be presenting at the upcoming ROM Research Colloquium – join us on February 3 at 11:30am in the Signy & Cléophée Eaton Theatre to hear more about An Embarrassment of Worms: Fossil Priapulida from the Silurian of Ontario … Real and Imagined
Saskatchewan’s newest dinosaur has ROM connection
Today, Caleb Brown and colleagues announced the discovery of Canada’s newest dinosaur, Thescelosaurus assiniboiensis – the first new dinosaur species to be discovered in Saskatchewan since 1926. The new dinosaur is named after the historic District of Assiniboia, where it was found. The small-bodied, two-legged plant-eater lived alongside the famed Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, at the very end of the age of dinosaurs.
Back in the lab – trying to make heads or tails of it all.
After three days of successful fieldwork on the chilly Grand Rapids Uplands, we return – toting a fresh batch of fossils – to The Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg. This is the home turf of my colleague, Graham Young, and almost a second home for me.
Southern Alberta field collection 2011 has arrived!
On the Rocks Again — in which a pair of intrepid palaeontologists head for the hinterland.
Ah, the romance of fieldwork. There’s nothing quite like waiting for the morning sun to rise high enough to illuminate a cold, wet outcrop, so that one can spend the next 8 or 9 hours kneeling in mud and splitting razor-sharp rock slabs. But we have hot coffee in the thermos, dry gloves in the pack, and — hopefully — there are some new fossils to be found!
Summerasuarus: Dino Storage
Recently, we visited at the Vertebrate Palaeontology Lab to see how dinosaur bones are extracted from their plaster field jackets after they are hauled back from the field by palaeontologists like Dr. David Evans.
But where does the ROM store these fossils once they are free from their rock matrix? Welcome to Vertebrate Palaeontology Collections room, housing more than 75,000 fossilized bone specimens ranging in size from small toes to an entire row of Hadrosaur skulls!
From the Field: Farewell Churchill
July 27
The weather forecast was pretty much on the money, and a dismal dawn yields to thunder-squalls rolling across the tundra. But, after breakfast and a second cup of coffee, the rain eases and we are a shade more optimistic about our flight out later this morning. Time for one last walkabout of our temporary home.
From the Field: Last day before departure
July 26