Wyoming’s Jurassic Mile Might Be The Biggest Dinosaur Find Ever

One of the world's most productive fossil sites is right there in Wyoming.

Two giant sauropods offer a first glimpse and much more will be found.

Just a few years ago they were encased in rock in Wyoming.

They are now on display at the Dinosphere show at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis.

Where is the 'Dinosaur Mile'?

One Wyoming quarry is a one-square-mile of ground in the Big Horn Basin.

It's filled with fossils from the Jurassic Period.

They knew back in 2019 that there was something big to be found but they were not sure what the full volume would be.

These Diplodocid species are new to science.

Their deaths were dramatic.

It seems a catastrophic flood event killed all four specimens.

That flood would have encased these massive creatures in mud, which hardened and preserved them for all of this time.

Their remains were found with the bones of other animals by a big tree trunk.

Diggers have found teeth from meat-eating dinosaurs known as theropods.

"There are a couple hypotheses for why we found so many theropod teeth. One is [that] this was a large animal, making quite the smorgasbord for other animals to find out on the plains," said Dr Jenn Anné, lead palaeontologist at The Children's Museum. (BBC).

 

"So a couple of theropods could chomp down on it and have enough space between them that they didn't have to fight over it.

Another hypothesis could be that this animal laid there for a fairly long period of time.

Multiple individuals came up and took a nibble over time.

It could also be that some of the teeth washed in from other areas." (BBC).

 

The museum took out a 20-year lease on the Jurassic Mile. They will be there digging for a while. There is still much to find.

Not just big animals, but well-preserved fossil plants.

Wyoming's ever-changing climate and geology continue to reveal our planet's history.