Page 5 - Eureka! Fall 2007

eld Dino hunter our knowledge will improve.” than 3,000 specimens, Phillips is teas- In the fi
ing out which features can tell him
Sharing what he knows comes
In the fi DCretaceous Alberta, Ryan unearthed a new species a bachelor of education degree. As ingly, the bone beds Phillips is inves- eld
naturally to Ryan, who also earned
how they were deposited. Surpris-
chief paleontologist for the Phaeton
uring the Late
tigating are all biological in origin.
What appeared to be sand holding the
Group, a science and media organiza-
of dinosaur. The skull he found is only
Period, an Oviraptor sitting on a
ered in Canada since the 1950s. With
under the microscope to be calcite
clutch of eggs, her feathered wings the second horned dinosaur discov- tion that unites experts in natural bones and teeth together was revealed
science, history and exploration, Ryan
spread wide, was killed in a fi erce long brow horns, a long, low bump in runs dinosaur digs for multi-disci- derived from the shells of giant clams.
sand storm. The sand that buried the place of a nasal horn, and thick hooks plinary groups, training students and “There’s no sand mixed in, so there
fl ightless dinosaur also preserved her that curl from the corners of the crea- amateurs alike. His involvement with was no erosion bringing in material
skeleton and eggs. This summer, ver- ture’s frill, albertaceratops nesmoi is Phaeton has also seen him consult for from the land,” he says. “There is also
tebrate paleontologist Michael Ryan a primitive member of the Centrosau- comic books and the fi lm industry— little evidence of reptiles and no fi sh
spent two months in Mongolia where rinae family. The plant-eating dino- he relocated the lost Star Wars fi lming that ate hard-shelled prey, so I need
he and his crew dug the skeleton and saur lived more than 10 million years locations in Tunisia for Lucasfi lm. to account for their absence.”
nest out of the cliff face that housed earlier than its small-horned relative “I’m as happy in pop culture as I am Were these animals not living in the
her for more than 70 million years. Triceratops and sheds new light on the in the science world,” says Ryan, who habitat, or were their bones excluded
“We saw eggshell and leg bones evolutionary history of the Ceratopsi- turned down a spot in animation at Sher- from the deposit by the conditions of the
sticking out of the cliff and ended dae dinosaur family. idan College to study biology. As it turned sea? Since water can sort out particles
up recovering the skull,” says Ryan, Approximately six meters long and out, he spends a lot of time drawing in of different sizes, the homogeneity or
BScHons/80. “It’s a thrill that never weighing as much as a pickup truck, science, enhancing features of bones and diversity of the bone beds could reveal
gets old.” the dinosaur lived nearly 78 million visualizing life from rock. The true test of Student Aaron Phillips, foreground, collects samples from bone beds on what was the eastern shore of the the energy and action of the seaway.
Now the fossil sits wrapped in years ago in what is now southern- his decision was the fi eld work. Western Interior Seaway. After slowly dissolving the rocks in acid, he was left with a jumble of thousands “The deposits were created by re-
a plaster fi eld jacket in Mongolia, most Alberta. It’s a locale that Ryan “The more advanced your degree, of teeth and bone fragments to sort under the microscope. Charlie Underwood, from the School of Earth peated, rapid changes in sea level,” says
Sciences, Birkbeck College, University of London, is in the background.
awaiting transport and further study. feels has untapped potential. the more time you spend digging holes Phillips. “At the best of times the water
“The task at a dig is to get all the “New regions offer the potential for in the ground, or so it seems. If you here would have been quite shallow, and
fossil out of the ground despite the new types of dinosaurs,” says Ryan, don’t like back-breaking labour in the Rock bottom: bottom water conditions weren’t terribly
harsh conditions and limited time. We who co-founded the Southern Alberta hot sun, this is not the profession for hospitable to life. Yet, we see that the
always have more fossil specimens Dinosaur Research Group to help re- you—but it can be incredibly reward- fauna is quite diverse. The bigger ques-
than our technicians have time to searchers coordinate their work with ing,” says Ryan. To make the thrill of Fossils from the sea fl oor tions then are: how did life thrive here in
prepare,” says Ryan, who is the cura- each other, government agencies and fi eld work more accessible to students, spite of this diffi cult, changing environ-
tor of vertebrate paleontology at the local residents. “We know of less than he is working with the Department of iecing together the history of the is examining the marine bone beds ment? How do these sites compare with
Cleveland Museum of Natural History. 10 per cent of the dinosaurs that lived, Earth Sciences to develop a fi eld course Pplanet is pain-staking work. Earth formed 97-95 million years ago that contemporaneous ones from elsewhere
His job—“to collect, research and pres- so as we move into less sampled areas, at Carleton. scientists work backward through mil- riddle the eastern shore. in the seaway? What can we learn about
ent”—takes him out of the museum “Carleton students have ac- lions of years, relying on fragmentary “It’s a potpourri of fossil animals,” the history and impact of sea level
for months at a time, landing him cess to a premier collection of evidence damaged by the ravages of time. says Phillips. “Fragments less than changes in this era of well-documented
at digs in Mongolia, North Africa, vertebrate fossils housed at the But each discovery adds to the under- one or two centimetres in size from global warming? These are just some
South America and China. Canadian Museum of Nature. standing of how the Earth was formed, numerous species of sharks, bony of the questions we’ll keep working to
But it’s his work in Alberta that It’s a fantastic resource,” says populated and continues to change. fi shes, plesiosaurs, occasional turtles answer.”
has really made his name. Ryan, who is a research associ- Master’s student Aaron Phillips’ piece and toothed, fl ightless birds are all
Ryan’s fascination with dino- ate there as well as the Royal of the puzzle is the ancient remains of jumbled together.”
saurs was fostered by the original Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology an inland sea that once covered Can- The concentration of bones and teeth
king kong movie and the dis- in Drumheller, AB. “Now students ada’s prairies. During the Cretaceous at Phillips’ site, and the lack of non-
covery that downtown Ottawa need the chance to walk onto a Period, one of the warmest time periods biological material, makes it unusual—
housed real-life monster bones. “I fi eld site, to fi nd material. That’s on Earth, there were no ice caps and sea and intriguing. In order to understand
spent a lot of time in the Canadian when you know if you’ve picked levels were high. North America was cut the ecosystem and geological processes
Museum of Nature as a kid, and the right job.” in two by the Western Interior Seaway, at work, Phillips must fi rst fi gure out ENtREPRENEURAsAURUs
I noticed that all the dinosaur For a scientist who has discov- stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the what’s there, how it got there, and what “with talking dinosaurs one can never get
skeletons came from Alberta,” says ered two new dinosaur species Gulf of Mexico. The Rocky Mountains the accumulation of bones means to too serious,” says Ryan North, Bcshons/03,
Ryan. “I knew I’d go there as soon and is currently working on were rising up on the west side of the the big picture of the sea. who chose dinosaur clip art over astronauts
as I was old enough.” describing a third, the job was a seaway, causing a down warp of the “Although there is no modern for his online, fi xed-art comic.
After studying biology at perfect fi t. continent. The sea’s shallow eastern analogue for the seaway, it’s easy to Unable to draw, the computer program-
Carleton—which he describes as “I have the job that I wanted shore, now the Manitoba Escarpment imagine that sharks were eating fi sh mer settled on static panels featuring
the toughest years of his life, but as a kid, and it’s even better than that straddles the border with Saskatch- since predators play the same role in t-Rex and Utahraptor, opting to change
which have served him well—Ryan I imagined.” ewan, would have experienced dramatic any ecosystem,” says Phillips. “The only the dialogue.
headed to the University of Cal- alteration as sea level changes covered challenging part is understanding why Originally created for a sprott school of
gary for his graduate degrees and For more information on the or exposed huge amounts of land. the bones accumulated in such dense Business class on entrepreneurialist culture,
the chance to dig for dinosaurs. Southern alberta Dinosaur re- To deduce what was happening to concentrations. What was happening Dinosaur Comics has blossomed into a full-
In 2001, after four hot, dry sum- Michael Ryan named Albertaceratops nesmoi for Alberta, where search Group and the Phaeton the seaway, Phillips, in cooperation in this sea to create this deposit?” time job and business for North.
mers spent searching for long- it was discovered, plus ceratops (horned-face) and a patronym in Group, visit dinoresearch.ca and with researchers from Carleton and By measuring and describing the you can check out Dinosaur Comics
honour of Cecil Nesmo, a rancher whose friendship and hospitality
horned centrosaurs in southern facilitated the collection of many paleontological specimens. phaetongroup.com. the Canadian Museum of Nature, shape, size and condition of more at qwantz.com.

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