Alberta - Rocks and Minerals Field Trip Ideas

Dinosaur Provincial Park

According to the fact sheet on the Park, it "covers Upper Cretaceous fossil beds containing some of the most important dinosaur fossil discoveries ever made."

"60 species of dinosaurs in 45 genera and 7 families have been found in the Park (Parks Canada, 2004), including specimens from every known group of dinosaurs from the Cretaceous period. The best represented families are the Hadrasauridae, Ceratopsidae, Ornithomimidae, Pachycephalosauridae, Tyrannosauridae, and Dromaeosauridae. There are also fossil remains of fish, turtles, frogs, lizards, flying reptiles and even marsupials."

"During the Upper Cretaceous, eastern Alberta was a low coastal plain at the edge of the shallow Bearpaw Sea. The climate was subtropical and the rich wildlife included about 35 species of dinosaur, several in herds overcome by flooding. Their bones were buried and preserved under layers of sand and mud deposited in the deltas of sluggish rivers which became the present soft sandstone and bentonite clay shale rocks."