The Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum in Wembley, together with researchers has found a new fossil site located on the Redwillow River. The group has named the fossil site Tyrants Aisle, after the creatures that walked the earth about 74 million years ago.
A group of researchers, from Canada, Australia, and Italy, led by PhD student Nathan Enriquez has documented the findings of the footprints in Tyrants Aisle in a journal, PLOS One. Museum Curator Dr. Corwin Sullivan is also one of the co-authors of the journal.
With the assistance of Grande Prairie Regional College, fieldwork was conducted at the location in 2018 but in recent years the water level has been too high to continue their study.
The trackways formed in the area around Grande Prairie when it was a floodplain. The tracks are from at least three types of Dinosaurs, according to Enriquez and the journal. The most common are from duck-billed Dinosaurs, who could weigh up to four tonnes.
Additionally, there are also prints from at least two kinds of carnivorous Dinosaurs. The authors of the journal describe footprints at the site with three toes belonging to either a Tyrannosaur or possibly a smaller relative of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The footprints with at least two toes are supposedly from Deinonychosaurs, one of the ‘raptor-like’ dinosaurs.
The footprints are underwater most of the year, but the group will continue to work so that the site is preserved for to explore and excavate the site in the spring. The journal is available for anyone to read online.