Erosion exposes dinosaur bone in Bay of Fundy
Posted Nov 13, 2015 06:57:00 AM.
Last Updated Nov 13, 2015 07:12:19 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A recent storm surge in the Bay of Fundy has exposed the bone of a dinosaur near Parrsboro.
Tim Fedak, curator of the Fundy Geological Museum, told NEWS 95.7 he thinks it’s probably a hip bone from the herbivore prosauropod, which is also known as the oldest dinosaur species found so far in Canada.
He said this type of dinosaur was roaming Nova Scotia and the Eastern seaboard about 200-million years ago when earth’s supercontinent of Pangaea was breaking up.
“Because Pangaea was ripping apart, the Bay of Fundy area was sinking for about 40-million years,” he explained. “Massive earthquakes were shaking the ground, the ground would just drop, and these animals were walking on this lowland valley.”
He said the dinosaurs would have gone to that lowland valley for water and food.
Fedak said the climate was much different back then because this area was closer to the equator.
He said we’re at around 45 degrees latitude right now, halfway between the equator and north pole, back then our area was closer to 15 degrees latitude, making it much hotter and drier.
He added this isn’t the first fossil find in that spot.
“For some reason there’s up to six animals that have been recovered from this one small deposit,” he said. “These skeletons are stacked up upon each other, for some reason a whole bunch of them died at once.
Fedak said it’s possible the animals were walking along a cliff when an earthquake hit, knocking them off, then the bodies could have floated down a small river channel and accumulated in that area.
He explained there are so many fossils in the Bay of Fundy because animals would have been covered quickly by sediment after they died.
A video of the bone can be found on the Fundy Geological Museum’s Facebook page.
