new discovery

["Ken Carpenter" <Kcarpenter@dmns.org>]

I have about 130 volunteers who work for me and some of them like to look for 
fossils in the Denver area. As most of you know, many of the first discoveries 
of dinosaur taxa (Ornithomimus, Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops (as a 
Bison)), were made in the Denver area in the late 1800s. But what most of you 
don't know is that dinosaurs continue to be found in the area today. 

One of my most active collectors, Bruce Young (usually accompanied by his 
wife), checks out construction sites after getting permission. There has been a 
lot of development for the past 10 years around Denver (there have been rumors 
that we are in a recession, but continued activity sure fools me). 
Interestingly, many of the dinosaur specimens collected these past 10 years 
have their own street address. 

The majority of the specimens are fragments, such as ceratopsian horncores, 
ceratopsian jaw fragments, centra of various vertebrae, chunks of ribs, 
isolated teeth of theropods, hadrosaur, ceratospians, etc. However, Sunday 
Bruce made his most important discovery and today I helped him and 3 other 
volunteers excavate a partial ceratopsian skull. An earthmover found it first 
and shaved off the entire left side of the skull. But in doing so, had exposed 
the bones for Bruce to find. Nevertheless, we did recover the entire right 
side, including brow-horn. The specimen measures 7 feet (2 m) from frill to 
beak. This is the most complete skull from the Denver area ("Bison" alticornis 
was just a pair of horns and top of the skull), and the second skull from 
Colorado (first found by me over 20 years ago). 

Ken