A Fossil Excavation Goes Wrong in the Worst Possible Way

An excavation of a rare dinosaur fossil goes horribly wrong. It’s left to paleo technicians to try and salvage what they can.

From the Show: Dinosaur Cold Case

[chillindude]

imagine the feeling in your stomach as you watch the 100mil year old fossil crumble

[richardthomas]

Biggest “ I told ya so “ ever . You know their was a guy that said “ don’t you think we need a Pallet “

[paytonpryor]

Man they should have know plaster wasn't going to hold a rock together. Paper only covers rock in rock paper scissors.

[JohnJ]

Can we take a minute to admire the skill of the guy with the drill? A fossil is essentially the animal turned to stone and these guys can tell the difference between fossil stone and ordinary rocks. That's pretty impressive to me.

[daemonblackfyre]

Wait so they decided to lift the fossil by supporting the weight on both of the ends of the rock and leave the middle portion completely unsupported? I’m not an engineer or anything but...

[mkfpv]

Imagine how many fossils they've dug up with out even knowing it....

[typorter-pplh]

Imagine what size of predator must have existed for a 3, 000 pound animal to require that much protective armor.

[AndreaRoll]

So they had there scientists engineers and technicians and nobody Realized you needed two beams in the other directions to lift that up? They literally did what you do when you want to break an egg, and the result was just that. Unbelievable

[hudsonhintze]

Big old fossil? Important? Put it on two stilts and lift it like cargo.

[thingsstuff]

Did anyone scan him for a chip? I'm sure his owners are worried sick.

[Chief_]

Lesson learned - support the bottom of what you’re lifting.

[PhoenixRiseinFlame]

For anyone who’s interested, this fossil is in the Royal Tyrell Myseum near Drumheller, Alberta, Canada. I lived 45 minutes from the museum and I can tell you it’s an exceptional museum (possibly the best palaeontology museum in the world). The video of the fossil mentioned in this video doesn’t do it justice. Seeing the fossil in person is breathtaking. You can see exactly what the dinosaur would have looked like while alive. If you’re ever in Alberta, the museum is a must see experience. Also Drumheller has some exceptional sights to see including the worlds largest T-Rex (a massive stature you can enter near their ice rink), the hoodoos (prehistoric rock formations), and buffalo jumps (places used by the natives to run bison off cliffs; usually there are a lot of shallow caves to explore).

[supernoob]

I was expecting the fossil to come back to life and eat him. That’s the worst possible way to me.

[sjoak]

“Goes wrong in the worst possible way.”

Me: *pictures the fossil coming to life in the middle of a field trip.*

Was disappointed

[aryaa]

We just gonna ignore it has a pair of side blades to take out the wheels of other dinosaurs

[scotth]

Kudos to the mining company for calling the paleontogists and stopping excavation. As for lifting it, any engineer would have seen that you need to tie those two beams together first.

[carllarsen]

This is what happens when seven supervisors try to work a job site..

[iaronflame]

I went to this museum and saw this fossil. It was really amazing seeing it in person.

[VSLeader]

3:00 "But no one has seen a nodosaur species like this" That tends to happen when you have to glue back together ten thousand fragments

[shlagin]

Not only was the fossil on 2 beams, the beams were not connected which caused them to splay out. It's likely that it wasn't even just the weight of the fossil that caused it to break, it was the force vectors pushing outwards (due to the rope setup) which created tension within the fossil. Notice how as soon as the fossil breaks the beams immediately go outward?