Utah Dig Near Arches Yields Possible New 140-Million-Year-Old Armored Dinosaur

Fossils dug up north of Arches National Park in Utah may come from an armored dinosaur no one has described before, an animal that lived roughly 140 million years ago. The Utah Geological Survey said the bones appear to belong to a previously unknown species, KSL reported.

The find is still being studied. If it holds up, it would add a new name to a stretch of time that paleontologists know poorly: the years right after many of Utah’s Jurassic dinosaurs vanished.

A new bonebed outside Moab

The bones come from the Ironstone Bonebed, a recently opened excavation site near Moab. State paleontologist Jim Kirkland leads the dig. He told KSL the crew has already identified four different kinds of dinosaurs there and has “barely scratched” what the ground holds.

Armored dinosaurs were plant eaters protected by bony plates and spikes set into their skin. The survey has not released a full description of the new animal, and the identification is still provisional. Before a species becomes official, scientists have to publish a formal description that other researchers can check against known specimens. Kirkland is now working on that description and on a name.

Why the rock layer matters

Don DeBlieux, Utah’s assistant state paleontologist, said the position of the fossils in the rock is what makes the site stand out. The bonebed sits just above the Morrison Formation, a famous set of Jurassic rocks in the American West that has produced many well-known dinosaurs.

Because the bonebed lies right on top of those layers, the team believes it holds some of the oldest Cretaceous sites in North America. The Cretaceous is the period that followed the Jurassic. DeBlieux also told KSL that some of these sites probably contain hundreds of thousands of buried bones.

What it means for the end of the Jurassic

At the close of the Jurassic, a major extinction event wiped out many of the dinosaurs that had lived in what is now Utah. What came next is less clear, because rocks from that early Cretaceous window are hard to find. A site packed with fossils from just after the turnover gives scientists a chance to see which animals survived, which ones were new, and how the ecosystem rebuilt itself.

That is why a possible new armored species from this layer draws interest. Each animal identified from the bonebed fills in part of a gap in the fossil record. None of this has been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet, so the species and its place in dinosaur history remain open questions until the formal description is out.

Decades of digging ahead

Kirkland expects the site to keep researchers busy for a long time. Standing on the slope, he told KSL that the ground beneath the team is full of untouched fossils and that this one site will take decades of work.

The dig is still in its early stages. Researchers will need to excavate, clean and study the bones before they can say how many species the bonebed holds and how they relate to dinosaurs found elsewhere.

A name for a retiring colleague

Kirkland plans to name the dinosaur after DeBlieux, who retires from his state position at the end of the year. The two have worked together for 25 years, collecting fossils across Utah.

DeBlieux estimated that the pair has spent years of their lives camped out in the field together and compared their friendship to that of brothers. Kirkland joked that they are like Laurel and Hardy, a well-known duo in their profession.

The name will become official only once Kirkland’s description of the species is published.

Source: KSL