A funny thing about this find is that the bone was in a core from beneath the parking lot of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science which is heavily dinosaur focused. It’s either a crazy coincidence or there are abundant dinosaurs under Denver.
awithrow · 14h ago
There are a lot in the area. There is dinosaur ridge out on i-70 that features all sorts of dino tracks and fossils. There was also another fossil discovery during while building a shopping center not too long ago: https://www.colorado.edu/coloradan/2017/10/10/dinosaur-found...
dabluecaboose · 14h ago
Indeed the Morrison Formation [1] covers much of the state. Dinosaur ridge is one edge of it, just a stone's throw away from Denver.
> This phenomenon is not uncommon in the metropolitan Denver area where such discoveries have catalyzed public curiosity in subsurface geology for nearly 150 years
That sounds like it’s the latter. But actually, it’s both!
colechristensen · 14h ago
A museum featuring dinosaurs being built in close proximity to dinosaur archaeology sites isn't that coincidental :)
elpakal · 14h ago
The comment was about finding the bones below the museum not about the museum being built in an archeological hotbed.
potato3732842 · 14h ago
Nitpick: paleontological, not archeological.
Denver is not exactly an archaeological hotbed, to put it mildly.
jebarker · 14h ago
Many major US cities have museums like this. It wasn’t built there because of the dinosaur archaeology as far as I know. This core was found during unrelated digging in the parking lot of the museum, so I think it is a coincidence.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrison_Formation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver,_the_Last_Dinosaur
That sounds like it’s the latter. But actually, it’s both!
Denver is not exactly an archaeological hotbed, to put it mildly.