A Teacher Followed Bones Up a Canadian Creek — He Found a Herd of Thousands of Dinosaurs

Ancient Canada reveals one of the largest dinosaur bonebeds ever discovered in North America: a 73-million-year-old mass grave in Alberta containing the remains of a horned dinosaur herd that may have numbered in the thousands. The discovery began in the early 1970s when science teacher Al Lakusta noticed large fossil bone fragments scattered along Pipestone Creek near Grande Prairie. Instead of simply collecting them, he followed the pieces upstream and uphill until he found the dark rock layer they were eroding from. When paleontologists eventually excavated the site, they discovered an extraordinary concentration of dinosaur bones. In some places, more than 100 bones are packed into a single square metre, with almost all of them belonging to the same species. Babies, juveniles and massive adults were all mixed together. The animal was later named Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai in honour of Lakusta. It was a roughly five-metre-long, two-tonne horned dinosaur related to Triceratops, but instead of a large nose horn it carried a massive bony boss on its snout and distinctive horns and spikes around its frill. The evidence suggests that an enormous herd died during a catastrophic flooding event. The animals occur together in a single layer, their bones were moved and sorted by water, and individuals of many different ages are preserved together. Researchers believe thousands of Pachyrhinosaurus may have been travelling as a herd when disaster struck. The scale of the site is still difficult to comprehend. Around 8,000 bones have been excavated from an area only about the size of a tennis court, while most of the bonebed remains buried inside the hill. Estimates of thousands of dinosaurs are based on the incredible density of fossils and the size of the unexcavated deposit. In this video, we explore how a teacher following a trail of bones discovered one of Canada's greatest dinosaur sites, what may have killed an enormous herd in a single event, and why scientists think these northern dinosaurs may have migrated across prehistoric Alberta in massive groups. #AncientCanada #CanadaHistory #Dinosaurs #PrehistoricCanada #Paleontology ⚠️ Some visuals are illustrative. Certain materials may be used under Fair Use for commentary and educational purposes.