12-Year-Old’s Unexpected Discovery of a 69-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Fossil Rocks Scientific World
“The first thing I said was, ‘Dad, you need to get up here,’” recalled Hrushkin. “My dad said that he could tell by the tone in my voice that I had found something really good.”
Suspecting they had found something significant but still unsure, the father-son duo sent a photo of their finding to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. The institute confirmed their suspicion: they had indeed found a real dinosaur bone. It was identified as part of a young hadrosaur, commonly known as a duck-billed dinosaur.
Nature Conservancy of CanadaResearchers uncovered 30 to 50 other fossils at the same location, all belonging to the same dinosaur.
The museum sent experts to the Horseshoe Canyon area where the discovery was made to inspect the specimen up close. The area is part of the Nodwell property under the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) which confirmed the Hrushkins’ discovery of the fossil.
“The discovery of this dinosaur on a conservation site demonstrates the need for land conservation,” the NCC wrote in their statement a few months following the excavation in July 2020, “not just to ensure the conservation of wild spaces for future generations, but also as an opportunity to learn about our natural heritage.”
According to the NCC, the geological makeup of the property represents a time period between 71 and 68 million years ago, reflected through layers of volcanic ash, sandstones, mudstones, and, of course, prehistoric specimens.
The fossil uncovered by the aspiring paleontologist is made even more remarkable due to the fact that discoveries from that era have been extremely rare.
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