In 2024, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science decided to explore the possibility of tapping into geo-thermal energy to power their building, so they began drilling test holes a thousand feet deep in the museum's north parking lot.
The idea was to gather information about the composition of the earth below them, and see if there was enough heat down there to run a geo-thermal heat pump.
As they drilled, the museum pulled up core samples, and of course the geology nerds started looking at the rocks, because that's what geology nerds do. And that's when they discovered that one of the rocks was not like the others.
Watch:
Yup:
At about the 763-foot mark, they found a dinosaur fossil.
The research they published about the fossil says,
The bone is identifiable as a vertebral centrum based on its morphology, including the presence of the impression of the neural canal on its dorsal surface, thin cortex, and dense spongy internal structure. An associated bone piece that occurs just above the centrum is interpreted as part of a neural arch that shares similarities to those of ornithopod dinosaurs such as Thescelosaurus or Edmontosaurus.
In other words, the drill hit a dinosaur right about here:
Which is quite something given the rarity of finding a dinosaur fossil at all, much less via a random core drilling in a museum parking lot.
‘It's basically like winning the lottery and getting struck by lightning on the same day,' said Dr. James Hagadorn, curator of geology at the Museum. ‘No one could have predicted that this little square foot of land where we started drilling would actually contain a dinosaur bone beneath it!'
Earth Sciences Research Associate Dr. Bob Raynolds was amazed:
In my 35 years at the Museum, we've never had an opportunity quite like this — to study the deep geologic layers beneath our feet with such precision. That this fossil turned up here, in City Park, is nothing short of magical.
I told you they were geology nerds.
If you want to see the parking-lot fossil, the museum has added it to the "Discovering Teen Rex" exhibit.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The teen Rex exhibit has the skeleton of an adolescent T. Rex discovered by some kids in North Dakota, and now it has the parking-lot fossil too, which I'm sure has Teen Rex feeling angsty about sharing his space.
There's no word on finding a heat source for the thermal pump, but all is not lost, as they did find some coal along with their fossil.
So there's still hope for powering the museum with their own underground energy.
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