Marmarth Dinosaur Reveals Secrets, a Grain of Sand at a Time

By KEN ROGERS

Dakota, the duck-billed hadrosaur discovered near Marmarth, isn’t just any dinosaur. Rather, the plant-grazing early resident of North Dakota was mummified. Not just, excuse the expression, a pile of bones, the preservation of Dakota also included skin and tendons.

Dinosaur mummies are very, very rare.

The remains of the hadrosaur discovered by a young Tyler Lyson in 1999 in the fossil-rich Hell Creek Formation in southwest North Dakota has helped push the leading edge of what we know about life here some 65 million years ago.

When a dinosaur comes out of the ground, it’s usually bone fossil – the beast’s skeleton fossilized. Over the years, that’s meant figuring out what a particular dinosaur looked like was a matter of guess work, which hasn’t always proved out. With Lyson’s discovery, it may be possible to learn more about how the hadrosaur moved and what it looked like.

“This duckbill’s skin is remarkably preserved, making Dakota one of the most scientifically important dinosaurs ever found,” John Hoganson, North Dakota State paleontologist, said in a news release.

Dakota’s form has been encased by nature in sandstone. Workers in the paleontology lab at the Heritage Center have been removing the sand from the fossilized skin of the dinosaur literally one grain of sand at a time using air-pressure powered tools capable of delicate work. Dakota was removed from a Badlands’ hillside in three pieces:tail, one arm and the rest of the dinosaur. Paleontologists involved in the project believe that most of Dakota is covered with fossilized skin.

The work removing the fossil from the sandstone began with the arm and tail. Looking closely, a person can see the dinosaur’s three fingers, a fourth digit and the pebble-like skin in the palm. The tail section, much larger, weighing about 1,400 pounds, has revealed the bones of the tail, the raised features along the top of the tail and the folds of skin that wrapped the powerful appendage. An array of different skin textures are clear. This work has taken since February, with the National Geographic Society providing funding.

The fossilized skin is a very thin layer of iron and carbon. Exposing the fossil skin from the sandstone requires extreme care. The skin is covered with pebble-like scales, some very small, some a half-inch across.

The block containing the majority of Dakota’s body, still embedded in tin foil, burlap, plaster and sandstone, weighs in at 8 tons, but could fit into the box of a full-sized pickup. Fossil bones of dinosaurs are very dense.

Dakota goes on display at the North Dakota Heritage Center on Saturday, following an opening ceremony beginning at 9 a.m. The rest of the day will be given up to scientists, authors and experts. Speaking will be the University of Manchester’s Phillip Manning, author of “Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs,” the story of the discovery, excavation and preservation of Dakota.

He will be joined by a team of scientists from the University of Manchester, Hoganson, and other experts from North Dakota.

Sixty-five million years ago, eastern North Dakota was ocean, with the coast near Bismarck. To the west was a huge river delta, swampy, forested and with a sub-tropical climate much like southern Florida today. Joining the duckbilled hadrosaur in this world were triceratops and tyrannosaurus rex.

Dakota, in life, had reached nearly 30 feet in length and weighed about 4 tons.

Lyson, now a doctoral student in paleontology at Yale University, owns Dakota, and has agreed to have the fossil prepared and displayed at the Heritage Center, for at least a year, and perhaps until a proper exhibit building can be built in Marmarth.

Excavation at the dig site was managed by Lyson and his Marmarth Research Foundation and conducted in conjunction with a team of scientists from the University of Manchester led by Manning. After it was out of the ground, Dakota traveled 1,000 miles to California, where it underwent a CAT scan at a NASA/Boeing facility, before returning to North Dakota. And samples from the dinosaur have undergone a wide variety of tests, searching for biomolecules (proteins) that might have been preserved and DNA.

Hoganson warns that there’s still much unknown about the hadrosaur and that it’s early to draw many firm conclusions.

The National Geographic Society has been a major contributor to the excavation, preparation and research on the dinosaur. It’s also publisher of Manning’s “Grave Secrets.” A documentary television program on the dinosaur, “Dino Autopsy,” is being shown regularly at the Heritage Center. In addition to “Grave Secrets,” Manning has published a children’s book about Dakota titled “Dinomummy.”

(c) 2008 Bismarck Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.