Dinosaurs have been a source of fascination and the inspiration for many stories and scientific explorations. Their fossilized bones have been discovered in different parts of the world for centuries. In 1824 William Buckland found out the first specimen called Megalosaurus unearthed near Oxford.

Where Are Most Dinosaur Fossils Found?

North America is the number one place to look when it comes to these prehistoric creatures. China and Mongolia come in second with ‘dragon’ bones (as the locals called them), having been uncovered for thousands of years.

In the US more kinds of dinosaurs have been found than anywhere else in the world and Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada has yielded the highest numbers of species found, with 37 different kinds unearthed.

Everything from the Tyrannosaurus to the Brachiosaurus has been carefully removed piece by piece from the North American landscape and then painstakingly put back together.

Recent discoveries include the bizarre Therizinosaurid dinosaur in Utah (which has a combination of bird-like features and large claws) and a four-ton mummified Hardrosaur nicknamed Dakota. Dakota was unearthed in North Dakota and is an extremely well preserved, rare find that has paleontologists around the world excited.

Why Is North America So Conducive To Finding Dinosaur Bones?

For animals to become fossilized certain conditions must be present at the time of death. The body has to be in a place where it can be buried right away so that decomposition and disintegration of the bones can’t take place. Along with this entombment certain minerals need to infiltrate the bones to make them resistant to crushing, a process called permineralization (this is an extremely slow process that is integral to the formation of fossils and petrified remains). Usually floodplains, river systems or the complete opposite, dry, arid deserts allow for this to happen.

In the fluvial settings (places where flowing water is present) dinosaurs were immediately buried in the river channels or covered up by sediment from floodwaters. During this process the scavengers and bacteria had no time to destroy the carcass and the mineral rich water could permeate the bones making them almost like stone. Entombed and preserved in this sediment they become fossilized.

Dinosaurs dying in the desert were also preserved due to a lack of organisms present in the arid environment that could break down the body. Scavengers were less attracted to the desiccated carcasses and so the sand buried the intact remains. During wet seasons rainfall infused the bones with minerals and fossilization took place.

These fluvial and desert environments were present across North America during the time of the dinosaurs and allowed the bones to be preserved, waiting for discovery.

Discovery

For dinosaur bones to be discovered certain conditions must also be present in the current environment. Long buried fossils become exposed when geologic uplifting (the process that forces land upwards) brings the old sedimentary layers close to the earth’s surface. Erosion then exposes these sedimentary layers and consequently any fossilized creations. Through careful excavation and specialized tools we can then finish the job nature started.

Prime regions for finding dinosaur bones are deserts with bluffs, buttes and cliffs, canyons, riverbanks and flood plains, mountainous zones and eroded hillsides. These places also need to be open and unpopulated areas where the bare earth is available for paleontologists to dig for remains.

With geographical conditions in North America as well as lots of specimens of dinosaurs have been discovered here, North America is surely a reliable place for your finding out dinosaur fossils.

Paleontology is the branch of biology that studies the forms of life that existed in the past geologic periods and eras, mainly bases on its remains, the fossils. Essentially, fossils are remnants of a dead animal or a plant that can be seen these days on rocks and other form of hard earthly surfaces.

Although, of course, it doesn’t mean that the said “remains” are the real skeletons or the actual plant rather fossils can be a petrified product of the original and also be the imprints like footprints. Fossils are believed and considered to have been submerged on water before, for the reason of the belief of that the remains of animal or plant was first covered by a soft soil and after some times layers of it gathered on it, hardened, solidify and then were pressed on together by natural processes. The water that is made up of minerals goes through the layers and changed the plant or animal relics into a rock like appearance and features.

The most intriguing kinds are the dinosaur fossils. The name dinosaur is a derived word from Latin terms: deinos, which means, “Great;” sauros for “lizard;” and fossils meaning “dug up.” Literally, it means “great lizard that was dug up.” The occurrence of these things is not new to us anymore.

In fact, people have been finding dinosaur fossils for almost thousands of years. The very fist recorded finding of the existence of dinosaurs is most of it in England, through a British fossil finder named as William Buckland. It was in the year 1819 when he exposed his findings of Megalosaurus Bucklandii (Buckland’s Giant Lizard) from England.

In the year1824, his discovery was named after him. However, earlier than this, Reverend Plot had discovered a very large femur bone during the year 1676 also in England. After careful studies, authorities imply that it may in fact have belonged to a dinosaur. Nevertheless, because there were past discoveries of enormous human skeletal remains that may range from 8 feet to 12 feet-tall many assumed that the discovery might have belonged to a very tall, almost a giant like human. However, during the year 1838, the entire dinosaur fossil was seen at New Jersey, USA by William Parker Foulke.

Out of curiosity, many people would hollow out information about the presence and occurrence of dinosaurs way back early times and this helped them become aware of their existence so the next fossil discovery was given enough attention. Also, dinosaur fossils were believed to be millions of years old, which were based on its geologic column, which dates fossils based on the rock’s type, appearance, and formation where they are found.

These fossils are located all through the earth’s sedimentary layers. Almost 95.0% of all earth’s fossil recorded comes from the remains of marine invertebrates, 4.74% are from plants and estimate of 0.25% are land invertebrates and 0.0125% are a vertebrate. Among those vertebrates, the majority comes from fishes. Furthermore, those 95% vertebrates are found to have only one bone or less.

Thanks to dinosaur fossils, nowadays people are able to recognize that there are animals living on earth before the mankind occur. This made us realize the importance of animals consequently modern animals should be preserved as much as possible. These remnants also give us knowledge of the earth’s surface.