The search for gem stones in a southern Alberta quarry has resulted in a priceless find of another sort — an ancient sea monster.
Scientists say the well-preserved fossilized elasmosaur discovered mid-May at Korite International’s ammonite mine south of Lethbridge could be the largest prehistoric marine reptile ever found in Alberta.
Paleontologist Don Henderson, of the Royal Tyrrell Museum, said the find is so significant it will be written up in scientific journals.
“It’s the most complete one from Western Canada,” Henderson said Thursday.
The elasmosaur is a type of plesiosaur, an aquatic creature with stiff, paddle-like flippers for limbs that feasted on fish and other underwater creatures.
The creature found in the ammonite quarry would have had a long neck, tiny head, fine sharp teeth and a strong jaw. Though carnivorous, it would not have been a savage beast, like a shark.
“It wasn’t chomping and attacking large things . . . it would probably hurt to be bitten on the hand by it but I can’t see it tearing your arm off,” said Henderson.
Though its appearance conjures images of mysterious sea creatures such as the Loch Ness monster, experts say plesiosaurs no longer lurk deep beneath water bodies around the world, having disappeared from the earth along with the land-dwelling dinosaurs at the end of the cretaceous period millions of years ago.
“They lived at the same time as the dinosaurs, right from the very beginning and up to the very end and mass extinction at the end of the cretaceous,”said Henderson.
The elasmosaur found in southern Alberta would have lived as many as 72 million years ago, swimming in the sea that once covered much of the province.
Back then, the area resembled the Florida coast.
“This seaway ran all the way from the Arctic Ocean all the way down to the gulf of Mexico,” added Henderson. “This animal died millions of years before the seaway was gone.”
The paleontologist said the fossilized creature found in the Bearpaw Shale — an area that stretches to Montana and is rich with fossils — could have been as long as 12 metres, seven of which would be neck.
It was a vertebrae from its neck that prompted workers at Korite’s mine to turn off the engines of their heavy equipment several weeks ago and call in the six-member Tyrrell team.
“They were digging when (a worker) spotted a bone,” said John Issa, of Canada Fossils Ltd., a sister company to Korite.
The unusually shaped rock was hanging out of the bucket of a large excavator. There were more leading into the shale at the side of the shallow pit, added Issa.
“It’s very exciting,” said Issa, adding the company has turned over fossils from two other major finds in recent years to the Tyrrell.
It took three weeks to haul out three slabs of rocks weighing more than 9,000 tonnes believed to contain the entire skeleton. There is a strong possibility that the head may still be intact.
The long, painstaking process to prove it, however, could take up to two years.
“These giant blocks of rock are still locked in burlap and plaster and sitting in our storage area. We can’t do anything on this until October,” said Henderson, adding he hopes the discovery will eventually become the showpiece for an aquatic exhibit.
Because the elasmosaur is so well preserved, experts hope to learn more about how species from this region compare to those worldwide.
Stones that were swallowed by the elasmosaur — common among the creatures — will also provide important information to scientists about how far the creatures swam and what purpose the swallowed rocks served.
Alberta has come to be known for its prehistoric discoveries.
Late last month, world renowned paleontologist Phil Currie, a science professor, revealed the discovery of a bone bed in Edmonton that is believed to have been a feeding ground for ancestors of the fierce Tyrannosaurus rex. Currie said it is one of the richest beds of dinosaur bones he has seen.
Source: canada.com
