Page 8 - The Restless Earth Fossils

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Fossils:

FROM NATURAL

CURIOSITIES TO

SCIENTIFIC TREASURES

▲ ▲ ▲

The tyrannosaur hurt. The breeze off the great water relieved
the sun’s heat, but her leg and side still ached where blood oozed
from the gashes created by Three Horn’s nose spike. She blinked
her eyes, but the tattered fern fronds nearby failed to focus prop-
erly. Suddenly, the sky tilted alarmingly and one side of her body
struck the cool earth. She found that she could not move. The
familiar forest odors of pine resins and molding leaf litter settled
about her as the world became silent and faded to black.

MORE THAN 65 MILLION YEARS PASSED.
In the year 1992, a man named Charles Fickle took a walk
with his dog through a half-built subdivision in Littleton,
Colorado. He (or maybe his dog) found a large, rock-hard bone
sticking out of the ground and suspected that it might be a fos-
sil—the (usually) mineralized remains of a once-living creature.
Fickle alerted the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. In
response, the museum sent paleontologists—scientists who spe-
cialize in studying the remains of ancient plants and animals—to
the site. They unearthed the entire right leg, ten teeth, a shoulder

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