Most museum-goers have no idea that beneath the Denver Museum of Nature & Science parking lot lies a prehistoric secret. In January, while drilling for a geothermal energy project—not a fossil dig—a crew pulled up a surprising find from over 700 feet underground: a small, fossilized vertebra just 2.5 inches wide. The fossil is believed to be from an ornithopod, a bipedal, plant-eating dinosaur that lived more than 67 million years ago. It’s now the oldest and deepest dinosaur fossil ever found within Denver city limits.
The partial bone, now on public display, is all scientists will get—there are no plans to dig up the rest of the fossil beneath the lot. Still, this accidental discovery has expanded scientists’ understanding of the region’s ancient past and hints that Denver’s modern cityscape may be layered atop many more buried prehistoric treasures. The museum has added the fossil to its permanent collection of over 100,000 specimens, and their findings have been published in a recent geology journal, shedding light on dinosaurs that once roamed where visitors now park.
