[Rockhounds] Drumheller: Canada's tiny town of huge monsters

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Alberta, Canada, is home to the largest deposits of dinosaur fossils on
Earth, and Drumheller <https://traveldrumheller.com/> – located 280km south
of the provincial capital Edmonton – is its epicentre. The small town
(population: 7,968) is the self-pronounced "World Capital of Dinosaurs"

Here, in this extraordinary badlands topography, dinosaur bones are
commonly seen poking out of the earth and some of the region's most
astonishing discoveries are showcased in the Royal Tyrrell Museum of
Palaeontology <https://tyrrellmuseum.com/>, a globally recognised natural
history museum and research centre that attracts more than 430,000 visitors
annually.

"The reason this area is so rich in dinosaur discoveries is because 75
million years ago it looked entirely different to the badlands terrain you
see now," said Dr Jim Gardner, a palaeontologist at the Royal Tyrrell who
specialises in prehistoric amphibians and reptiles. "It was once a
semi-tropical coastal plain with the ideal conditions for life to flourish,
especially dinosaurs that could feast on the plethora of plant life and
creatures such as crocodiles, pterosaurs (flying reptiles), and, of course,
other dinosaurs."

The conditions were also perfect for preserving the dinosaurs after death:
seasonal storms and floods killed them in large numbers, then quickly
buried their corpses under large quantities of sediment. "Water was key in
this wonderfully fortuitous cycle of events," explained Gardner. "It helped
create life, brought about death, buried the dinosaur remains in the
perfect conditions for preservation, then set fossilisation in motion.
Alberta is the world's leading dinosaur hotspot as a result."

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240220-drumheller-canadas-tiny-town-of-huge-monsters