April 29, 2013

Scientists study rare dinosaur skin fossil at CLS




Experiments will determine dinosaur’s skin colour and why the fossil preserved intact

One of the only well preserved dinosaur skin samples ever found is being tested at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) synchrotron to determine skin colour and to explain why the fossilized specimen remained intact after 70-million years.

University of Regina physicist Mauricio Barbi said the hadrosaur, a duck-billed dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period (100-65 million years ago), was found close to a river bed near Grand Prairie, Alberta.

The area has a robust “bone bed” but Barbi is not yet sure why the fossil preserved so well.