Welcome to Dinosaur Park

Welcome to Dinosaur Park. . , Welcome to the most productive dinosaur fossil quarry east of the Mississippi River. From the bones and teeth of the Maryland State Dinosaur Astrodon ohnstoni to the remains of early flowering plants, the fossils found at Dinosaur Park hep scientists reconstruct our region's ancient history., In 1858, African American iron miners working in this site discovered the first Maryland dinosaur fossils. Later, famed 19th-century paleontologist John Bell Hatcher would recover many more fossils; including bones and teeth from six dinosaur species. Fossils are still found at Dinosaur Park today. Since 2009, this irreplacable natural resource has been preserved for scientific study and public educational programs., Dinosaur Park is a cooperative project between the Maryland-National Captial Park and Planning Commission and Jakson-Shaw, developer of The Bick Yard. The Park serves as an outdoor laboratory where the public can work alongside paleontologists to help uncover and interpret the past., The Cretaceous World , The fossils at Dinosaur Park were deposited during the Cretaceous Period, which lasted from 145 to 66 million years ago. This is relatively recent history compared to the 4.5 billion year age of the Earth. Still, it is much older than the marine fossils of the nearby Calvert Cliffs (20 million years old), or the earliest humans (200 thousand years old)., In many ways, the Cretaceous Period marked the birth of the modern world. during this time, the northern and southern landmasses of the Jurassic Peirod began to break up, forming the mosaic of continents and oceans we know today. The expanding oceans influenced the global climate, which became cooler and drier, with more pronounced seasons. This in turn led to the expansion of temperate forests, with trees such as oak, hickory, and magnolia gaining prominence throughout North America. Meanwhile, flowering plants first became widespread in the Cretaceous Period, oined by the first pollinating insects. The fossils found at Dinosaur Park help scientists understand how and why these important environmental transitions took place., An Ancient River , 110 million years ago, central Maryland was a flat coastal plain with winding rivers. Sharp bends in the rivers became detached and formed lakes or swamps called oxbows. Dinosaur Park is a remnant of one such oxbow. When the river was high, debris drifting downstream, including dead plants and animals would flow into the oxbow, and become trapped there when the flood waters receded. There they were entombed in clay and became the fossils we find at Dinosaur Park today., What will you find?, [Captions:] , These Astrodon (Pleurocoelus) neck vertebrae were discovered by Hatcher in 1891., In 2006 Smithsonian specialists excavated this dinosaur tibia (leg bone).