Before they’re towering over you at the Arizona Museum of Natural History, prehistoric dinosaurs are hidden in rock and dirt.
Bet you didn’t know that there’s a team of paleontologists in Mesa, Ariz. scraping, digging and piecing together creatures that roamed the earth millions of years ago.
“Paleontology is such a fascinating subject. It’s the kind of thing that every feels like they know something about this subject, but they don’t know the whole details,” said Allison Stoltman, Curator of Education at the Arizona Museum of Natural History.
Across the street from the museum itself, a team of paleontologists dig through fossils transported from the field, usually in plaster casts, that are brought back to the lab for analyzing or storage.
“This particular one is surrounding a Stegomastodon which is an ancient elephant,” Dr. Robert McCord, Curator of Paleontology, Arizona Museum of Natural History.
The deeper you go in the lab, the older fossils get.
“The oldest fossil in the collection are these. They’re stromatolites and they’re somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.2 billion years old,” said Dr. McCord.
The work isn’t only for experienced paleontologists. In fact, the lab calls on volunteers to help with different aspects like education and exhibit building. It was volunteers who actually helped unearth a new dinosaur discovery that will be named and unveiled soon.
“I can’t tell you much about it because it’s a secret. But I can tell you it’s a meat-eating dinosaur that will have big implications on all those meat-eating dinosaurs called theropods,” said Stoltman.
