A sketch of what a new fossil site discovery used to look like when dinosaurs ran live in the Redwillow River area. Photo: Philip J. Currie Museum

By Shane Clausing

new fossil site discovery

2018 international research project leads to discovery of new fossil site west of Grande Prairie

Feb 3, 2022 | 5:19 PM

A group of international researchers say they have discovered a new fossil site located on the Redwillow River located west of Grande Prairie.

Back in 2018, a group of researchers from Australia, Italy and Canada led by PhD student Nathan Enriquez, described the findings of footprints at what’s called Tyrants Aisle.

“This one year in 2018, they (the researchers) were able to get down to the fossil layer, which is a dinosaur trackway,” explained Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum Curator Dr. Emily Bamforth. “What’s neat about this site is it’s got trackways of multiple dinosaurs. The nickname of the site is ‘Tyrants Aisle’, and Tyrants is a reference to the tyrannosaur footprints at this site.”

“There are also lots of duck-billed dinosaur tracks at this site as well, as well as another little raptor-like dinosaur called a deinonychosaurs,” Dr. Bamforth added. “We don’t really know what the dinosaurs are just based on their footprints, but we know that’s the type of dinosaur they come from.”

Dr. Bamforth says the study did find these dinosaurs did at one point all interact with each other.

“It (the Redwillow River) has lots of different dinosaur trackways. It has multiple animals interacting with each other, this was probably a trackway which formed over several seasons along a flood plain which would’ve been the environment at that time.”

Photo: Philip J Currie Museum

Photo: Philip J Currie Museum

Dr. Bamforth explained how researchers were able to make the discovery.

“A lot of what they (the researchers) did was photographing the specimens and measuring them at various different times of the day so the light was different,” she said.

“They also did some fancy stuff with photogrammetry where they can actually map the depths of the footprints and give it a colour. That gives them a sense of how deep the animal was stepping and that helps them reconstruct the shape of the foot. By looking at the trackways they made, you can take that and see how these dinosaurs would have interacted with each other.”

So far, Dr. Bamforth says this could help lead to more discoveries. She does mention it is pretty exciting to find a discovery like this in the region.

“What’s kind of exciting about this study is it highlights some of the really exciting fossil sites we have here in the Grande Prairie area. Footprints are something that are found here commonly in what’s called the ‘Wapiti Formation’, which is our main dinosaur formation baring here in the Peace Region.

“The fact there are these amazing trackway sites is exciting for us a paleontologist’s. It means there is so much potential to go out there and find more when we go out and look for them.”