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A 12-year-old boy discovered his life the day he found a 69-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton.
The amateur paleontologist was hiking with his father in a fossil-rich area of Alberta, Canada, in July when he saw some bones protruding from a rock. The excavation of the skeleton was completed this week, reports BBC News.
The boy, Nathan Hrushkin, says that when he first saw the bones, he stayed “Literally speechless”. “I wasn’t even excited, although I know I should have been.”he told BBC News.
„He was so surprised that he had made a discovery about dinosaurs. “ said the boy.
Nathan, who has been passionate about dinosaurs since the age of six, often goes on a field trip with his father to the Canadian Albertan Badlands site.
“I’ve always been so fascinated by how your bones turn into solid rocks“Explains the boy
A year ago, he found small fragments of fossils and his father suspected that they would fall from the rock above. So this summer Nathan decided to survey the area. Fossilized bones protruded from the side of a hill.
“They looked like stone bones, they couldn’t be mistaken for anything else”said his father, Dion Hrushkin.
Nathan knows that fossils are protected by law, so when they got home, he and his father contacted the Royal Tyrrell Museum, located in Alberta and dedicated to the study of prehistoric life. The museum advised them to send photos with their discovery and GPS coordinates.
Badlands is home to many fossils, and a dinosaur, named Albertosaurus, was discovered here by Joseph Tyrell in the late 1800s. But the part of the conservation site where the boy made the discovery was unknown, so the museum sent a team of experts to dig. .
So far, they have found between 30 and 50 bones in the canyon wall, all belonging to a young Hadrosaur, who died at the age of three or four.
Nathan says that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was his favorite, but “after my discovery, it will definitely be the Hadrosaur.”
The dinosaur is scientifically important, says the museum, because the fossil is about 69 million years old and information from that period is very scarce.
“This young Hadrosaur is a very important discovery, because it comes from a period of time about which we know very little. Nathan’s discovery will help us fill this void. “Palaeoecology museum curator François Therrien said in a statement.
Nathan says the whole process was “surreal.” “It will be great to see the dinosaur after months of work. “, He concluded.
Publisher: DC
