Dinosaur Provincial Park

The sediments exposed in the badlands at Dinosaur Provincial Park were laid down over a period of about 1.5 million years during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous epoch, and belong to three different geologic formations. The top of the terrestrial Oldman Formation, which outcrops at the base of the sequence, is the oldest. It is overlain by a complete section of the terrestrial Dinosaur Park Formation, which is in turn overlain by the base of the marine Bearpaw Formation. The Dinosaur Park Formation, which contains most of the articulated dinosaur skeletons, was laid down between about 76.5 and 74.8 million years ago. It was deposited in floodplain and coastal plain environments by river systems that flowed eastward and southeastward to the Western Interior Seaway.[2]

Chasmosaurus belli, which was found in the Park, on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology

The badlands near the entrance of the park

Dinosaur Provincial Park preserves an extraordinarily diverse group of freshwater vertebrates. Fish include sharks, rays (such as the durophage Myledaphus), paddlefish, bowfins, gars, and teleosts. Amphibians include frogs, salamanders, and the extinct albanerpetontids. Reptiles include lizards (such as the large monitor Palaeosaniwa), a wide range of turtles, crocodilians, and the fish-eating Champsosaurus. Mammal fossils from the park are relatively rare and consist of isolated teeth, fragmentary jaws with teeth, and tooth fragments from mouse-sized and shrew-sized animals. They include representatives of placental, marsupial, and multituberculate mammals.[2]

Plant fossils from the park and surrounding area include fern fronds; foliage and wood of taxodiaceous and cupressaceous conifers; and leaves of Ginkgo, Cercidiphyllum, Platanus, a Pistia-like aquatic plant, and others.[3] A rich assemblage of fossil pollen and spores has also been described.[4]

The dinosaurs of the park are astonishingly diverse. They include:

Ceratopsia

• Leptoceratops sp.
• Centrosaurus apertus
• Coronosaurus brinkmani
• Styracosaurus albertensis
• Pachyrhinosaurus
• Chasmosaurus belli, C. russelli
• Vagaceratops irvinensis

Hadrosauridae

• Corythosaurus casuarius
• Gryposaurus notabilis, G. incurvimanus
• Lambeosaurus lambei, L. magnicristatus
• Prosaurolophus maximus
• Parasaurolophus walkeri

Ankylosauria

• Panoplosaurus
• Edmontonia
• Euoplocephalus tutus

Hypsilophodontidae

• Orodromeus

Pachycephalosauria

• Stegoceras

Tyrannosauridae

• Daspletosaurus torosus
• Gorgosaurus libratus

Ornithomimidae

• Ornithomimus
• Struthiomimus
• Rativates
• new ornithomimid species A

Caenagnathidae

• Chirostenotes pergracilis
• Chirostenotes elegans
• Chirostenotes collinsi

Dromaeosauridae

• Dromaeosaurus albertensis
• Saurornitholestes
• Hesperonychus elizabethae
• ?new dromaeosaur species A
• ?new dromaeosaur species B

Troodontidae

• Troodon
• new troodontid species A

Classification Uncertain

• Ricardoestesia gilmorei

Birds such as Hesperornithiformes were present, as well as giant Pterosauria related to Quetzalcoatlus. Stagodont marsupials, placentals and multituberculate mammals scurried underfoot.