Dinosaur fossils1 are often found on the surface of the Earth. But there are other places to find them...
A cliff is an excellent place to look back in time by examining the ground closely. For example, as waves crashed into the cliffs at Lavernock Point in Wales, they 5 started slowly breaking down the rock to reveal the fossilised bones of a dinosaur named Dracoraptor! But you don’t need a crashing ocean to wear away the ground. The remains of the small Leptoceratops were discovered after floods wore away the banks of Red Deer River in Canada.
Some places where palaeontologists find fossils are very hard to get to and 10 haven’t been visited by many people. On the side of Mount Kirkpatrick in Antarctica, palaeontologists needed to use a powerful jackhammer2 to uncover Cryolophosaurus fossils in the thick polar rock.
It is very hard to work in Antarctica because of the frozen ground and terrible cold. Fossils of Antarctopelta took almost 10 years to remove from the ground on 15 James Ross Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula. The name Antarctopelta means ‘Antarctic shield’ because of its heavy armour and where it was discovered.
Often, fossils are exposed by accident. When miners in Canada were looking for oil, they found instead the remains of Borealopelta complete with its skin, armour and even fossilised lips! Fulgurotherium and Muttaburrasaurus from modern-day 20 Australia were also discovered by miners. The miners were actually trying to find opal – a rare, blue stone that some people like to wear as jewellery. Some of the dinosaurs’ bones had fossilised into this precious stone, which means they are very pretty ... and worth a LOT of money.
Traces of dinosaurs have been found on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of 25 Scotland. Footprints were discovered on the rocky shore and palaeontologists have to clamber over miles of slippery, seaweed-covered rocks to study them. On top of that, the coastline can be very blustery and cold in the winter and swarming with midges3 in the summer!
In some places, however, it is much easier to discover fossils. In Liaoning 30
Province, Northeast China, beautiful, delicate fossils are simply found by farmers on thin pieces of rock on their land.
Glossary 1 fossils: the remains of ancient plants and animals found in rocks 2 jackhammer: a powerful drill used to break up rock 3 midges: small, flying insects which bite
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