Dinosaur mummies hold the best kept secrets
June 17, 2008
Bismark, North Dakota (WiredPRNews.com) — The state museum of North Dakota’s mummified dinosaur is attracting wide attention from all over the world as people from various countries visit the Heritage Centre on Sunday to view the unveiling of a mummified dinosaur at the capitol grounds.
According to Phillip Manning, a paleontologist with Manchester University who is working on the project with the team of 50 workers, “It is a fascinating fossil, and it’s one which we’re going to be disinterring secrets from…for many years to come.”
In the museum’s back room, a bigger prehistoric relic is waiting for its turn so as paleontologists work with chisels and brushes to free it from rock. The duckbilled dinosaur that was fossilized under the soils of West-North Dakota has been lying there for more than 67 million years before being excavated in 2004 through 2006. The dinosaur is an Edmontosaurus named Dakota. Dakota forms one of those rare dinosaurs that has been incredibly well preserved.
After death, the decomposition of animal tissue is a normal thing and one finds bone as the part of dinosaur fossil. However, the researches feel that Dakota might have been buried in the right environment that suited its soft tissues and skin that were preserved over a long period of time. Manning stated, “When you see the final product of the science, it will be something which will be founded in fact and not in just animation and many of the things you see on the television.”
According to John Hoganson, a state paleontologist at North Dakota Geological Survey, “It’s certainly drawing a lot of attention to North Dakota. We know people are going to be coming in from all over the country and world to see this.” Hoganson said that he was being called from the people of Australia and England.
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