While it’s unlikely that your dog will accidentally unearth the intact skeleton of a Seismosaurus while burying a bone in your front yard, every now and then, folks do stumble across dinosaur fossils, in forest clearings, dried-up river beds, or deserted mountain passes. Here’s how to handle your dino discovery.
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: a few hours
Here's How:
- Take a picture. Sometimes even the sturdiest, best-preserved fossils won’t survive the attention of an amateur paleontologist. If you insist on removing the fossil yourself and taking it home, snap a picture of it first (even if it’s just with your cell phone) in case anything goes awry.
- Record your location. On the (very) off chance that you’ve made a major dinosaur discovery, professionals will want to know all the details, chief among them the fossil’s exact location and its “stratigraphic occurrence” (that is, its height or depth in sediment or rock, which is crucial for dating purposes). Write down or (if you haven’t got a pen) memorize this information.
- Decide if the fossil is best left intact. There’s nothing wrong with carefully wrapping a small, loose fossil in some tissue paper and placing it in your pocket. However, if the fossil is embedded in a rocky outcropping, you’ll likely only damage it by trying to remove it. If there’s the slightest chance of inflicting damage, don’t tackle the job.
- Alert the proper authorities. If your fossil find is too big (or too delicate) to carry home, fire up your cell phone and call your local university or natural-history museum. You’ll still get credit for the discovery, and your state’s paleontologists will appreciate the chance to excavate and examine the fossil.
- Don’t get your hopes up. Unless you live in a dinosaur-rich state like Montana, odds are that those weird-looking bones you found by your septic tank don’t belong to a previously undiscovered feathered dino, but to an ordinary chicken. In other words, enjoy the thrill of the hunt, but don't expect to be featured on "Nova" anytime soon.
