Digging For Dinos At The Wyoming Dinosaur Center
Fossils are amazing time capsules.
Paleontologists are people who study animal and plant fossils. They use fossils to help understand animals and plants that lived long before humans were around. The Wyoming Dinosaur Center is jam packed with fossils of dinosaurs and animals from around the world.
Like any museum, displays are carefully set up so that visitors can see the exhibits. But, unlike most museums, the Wyoming Dinosaur Center lets visitors go beyond just looking. At this museum, visitors can help paleontologists dig in a real excavation and maybe even uncover some dinosaur bones of their own!
A Dinosaur’s Favorite Place
The Wyoming Dinosaur Center is located in the modern city of Thermopolis, Wyoming. These days it’s a hilly area covered in reddish-brown dirt and rock. Long ago, however, the area was very different.
Sauropods, some of the largest land creatures ever, lived 65 to 150 million years ago. Back then, there was a river over the area where Thermopolis is today. When the dinosaurs died, the river carried their bones downstream to where they were covered in silt and eventually became fossils.
Visitors to the Wyoming Dinosaur Center can see the largest dinosaur ever discovered in Wyoming. “Jimbo” is a Supersaurus. This dino is so big that it takes up the whole length of the museum just to display the fossils!
These days, there are many dig sites just down the road from the museum. It’s not just trained scientists that get to dig for dino bones. Visitors to the museum can be a part of the excavation, too!
Dig for a Day
Children and adults can both help excavate, or uncover, fossils. It’s hard work, but it’s a lot of fun!
The day begins at 8 am when visitors meet with a museum guide and learn about the dig site. Visitors dig with real tools, so the safety talk is an important part of the day.
Then it’s off to the dig site!
There are tens of thousands of bones buried in the area around Thermopolis. As part of a real excavation team, visitors go wherever the scientists need help. There’s a good chance that no matter where they’re digging, they’ll find something special.
Big tools like shovels and pickaxes are used to remove top layers of dirt and rock. Shouts of joy and surprise burst from around the site as volunteers exclaim as they unearth a fossil. Professional paleontologists act as guides, and they’re never far away. Once a fossil has been discovered, they help visitors use smaller tools like trowels and even dull oyster knives to carefully clear away the rest of the mud and rock.
Scientists teach visitors every step they need to complete in order to preserve the find. The name of whoever made the discovery, even if they’re not a professional scientist, is written down along with the fossil information. It will be recorded in the Wyoming Dinosaur Center archive. The visitor will always be known for discovering that fossil!
After the Dig
A lot of the work that usually goes on behind-the-scenes is open at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center.
One of the first ways that fossils are taken care of behind the scenes is to make sure that each fossil is clean. Fossils are delicate, and they must be carefully handled and stored. Did you know that tools exactly like the ones your dentist works with are used on fossils? These “micro tools” are used to remove as little as a single grain of sand. Special glue can also be used to help hold together a fossil that is especially fragile.
Another way that paleontologists take care of delicate fossils is by making molds and casts of them. This means that scientists can make many copies of a fossil. Sometimes, paleontologists are worried a fossil could be damaged if put on display. They’ll make a copy that looks just like the real fossil. That way visitors can see exactly what the fossil looked like, but the real fossil stays safe.
Digging up dinosaur bones is a way of touching pieces of the past. It’s exciting to discover something that has been buried for many millions of years. At the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, visitors can be a part of the action!