Alberta Scientists Discover Largest-Ever Cache of Dinosaur Bones

Cryolithic writes "The largest cache of dinosaur bones ever found has been unearthed in Alberta. From the article: '... officials at the Royal Tyrrell Museum say the Hilda site provides the first solid evidence that some horned dinosaur herds were much larger than previously thought, with numbers comfortably in the high hundreds to low thousands. ... Rather than picturing the animals as drowning while crossing a river, a classic scenario that has been used to explain bonebed occurrences at many sites in Alberta, the research team interpreted the vast coastal landscape as being submerged during tropical storms or hurricanes. With no high ground to escape to, most of the members of the herd drowned in the rising coastal waters. Carcasses were deposited in clumps across kilometers of ancient landscape as floodwaters receded.'"

Comments

It's not what it would seem.

[migla]

"God put those there to test our faith."

Re:It's not what it would seem.

[Monkeedude1212]

I'm about 99% certain you were doing that for the lolz and you're not some bible-thumping-hick, but regardless I'm going to go ahead and troll a response that is related to the article.

First and foremost, I'm going to have to say that the Royal Tyrrell Museum is quite possibly the most badass museum on the face of the planet. Let me go ahead and also go out on a limb and say that Drumheller (the city/town in which the Royal Tyrell Museum resides) would probably be the best place for a kid to grow up. Do a google image search if you don't believe me, but the town is literally littered with dinosaur tourist traps. Dinosaurs everywhere. It's not uncommon for people to go on random excursions and find a dinosaur bone or two sticking out of the hills, which have ever-shifting mud and dirt being in the badlands region that they are. I grew up in Calgary so I was about an hour and a half away from Drumheller, but I still don't think I go there often enough, even though I go at least once a summer.

So, to say that the biggest cache of dinosaur bones found in Alberta does not at all strike me surprised. I think we probably held the previous 3 records as well. Even in the mountain ranges people find dinosaur bones, which always kind of struck me as odd, but I guess it suggests how young some mountains really are. You may have heard of these fossilized things called ammonites - they are pretty common in mountain ranges all over the world. Old reminents of ancient sea life. However, only in this certain region in Alberta do they get this rainbowy colour. I found it kind of interesting. Alberta is also known for its Oilsands, one of Canada's sources for oil nowawdays, and if I had to venture a guess, its because we had lots and lots of dinosaurs.

In response to the whole "test our faith" - anyone who believes that HAS to go to the Tyrell Museum. They have set up an amazing display of how we've actually linked the timeline. Aside from the first exhibit, which is sort of their "Prize displays" - everything is in chronological order. You go back hundreds of millions of years and see some of the marine life fossils, then you work your way into dinosaurs, mix in marine reptiles every now and then, then you get a mix of neanderthals and ice age and tribal stages of life, working into today.

All in all, by the end of it, if you don't believe in dinosaurs, you've managed to ignore rock solid (pun intended) evidence presented to you before your eyes.

Re:It's not what it would seem.

[Monkeedude1212]

Point is, if you make a square from Jasper to Medicine Hat, there are bones all the way through there.

One of their prize exhibits, The Black beauty, was found all the way out by crowsnest pass.

Re:It's not what it would seem.

[ladadadada]

The good man is not a troll and was indeed quoting one of funniest comedians of our time who is also conveniently mentioned in his sig. The follow up line was:

Bill: "I think God put you here to test my faith, Dude. You actually believe that?"
Young earth creationist: "Uh huh."
Bill: "Does that trouble anyone here? The idea that God.. might be...fuckin' with our heads? I have trouble sleeping with that knowledge. Some prankster God running around: "Hu hu ho. We will see who believes in me now, ha HA.”

And now, for some more dinosaur based humour from Bill:

Bill: “You believe the world's 12 thousand years old?"
YEC: "That's right."
Bill: "Okay I got a question to ask you."
YEC: "Okay"
Bill: "It's a one word question."
YEC: "Uh huh."
Bill: "Dinosaurs."

Bill: " You know the world's 12 thousand years old and dinosaurs existed, they existed in that time, you'd think it would have been mentioned in the fucking Bible at some point. "And lo Jesus and the disciples walked to Nazareth. But the trail was blocked by a giant brontosaurus...with a splinter in his paw. And O the disciples did run a shriekin': 'What a big fucking lizard, Lord!' But Jesus was unafraid and he took the splinter from the brontosaurus's paw and the big lizard became his friend.”

They died in the great flood

[aristotle-dude]

They discovered a large herd of animals which died in a a large flood event.

What did this remind you of?

Put away your bullshit anti-religious rhetoric and look at the evidence honestly. Mitochondrial Eve, this flood evidence are all examples of science rediscovering what people have known for centuries. Scientist see something right in front of them but they just have to change a few details around to keep themselves from sounding like "creationists" to their colleagues.

Science now knows that it is possible for humans to live for centuries if their Telomeres were to not deteriorate. There have been examples this phenomenon. Google "immortal cells" for a story about cancer cells that are still alive when their original host had passed on long ago.

Re:They died in the great flood

[Chih]

Mod Parent YHWH

Re:They died in the great flood

[mellestad]

So the world was flooded for months with over a mile of water, then all the bodies, still whole, settle in the same region, then they are trampled and eaten by dinosaur scavengers (presumably they just ran really fast from Noah's ark back to Alberta). Awesome, that explains everything.

Re:They died in the great flood

[bmo]

A creationist stands on his hind legs and says thusly:

look at the evidence honestly.

I've debated with Young Earth Creationists such as yourself.

Newtonian physics doesn't mention God. Relativistic physics doesn't invoke God. Maxwell's equations don't involve God. Astronomy doesn't involve God. Electronics theory doesn't involve God. None of the sciences involve God. The biological sciences don't invoke God. Medicine doesn't invoke God. But Creationists such as yourself have no problem benefiting from the results of such science and the technology it helps create.

It's more productive talking to a toothbrush. I'm tired of people such as yourself trying to drag us all back to the 12'th century with regards to knowledge. I've heard it for most of my 44 years on this planet.

No. You're willfully stupid. Go away. And stop using all that Godless science and technology you rely on every day to get through modern life.

Hypocrite.

--
BMO

Stop digging up my yard

[Cyclloid]

Fido I told you to stop burying your leftovers in the yard.

Curator

[Dr. Eggman]

Former Curator and original collector of many of the bones in the cache, "Skippy," was unavailable for comment. However his lawyers, have stated that he is not pleased with this "discovery" by the human scientists and will be submitting an injunction against removal of any bones after his "walkies."

They died in 'a' great flood, not The Great Flood

[zorak]

The religious have always managed to adapt their pet mythologies to the evidence of the day. Scientists avoid sounding like creationists in front of their colleagues by following the evidence, rather than exclaiming "GODIDIT!", rolling around on the floor, and speaking in tongues. Nice try, tho.

Site of

[JustOK]

They were found near a site that has been described as a prehistoric drive in, along with what appears overturned car.

Re:They died in 'a' great flood, not The Great Flo

[JoshuaZ]

I'll bite. What disproves - not Biblically speaking, but just the simple idea - the idea that there was a global flood? Because it seems like a lot of fossils are created during "great floods." Nobody seems to ever even suggest the idea that there was a global flood... every other idea is proposed (numerous "great floods," meteors hitting the earth, etc) but why is a global flood not proposed?

Many different reasons:

First, there's not enough water on Earth. So if it did occur, where did the other water go?

Second, we don't see in the geological record evidence for a flood all at the same point in history. We see at different levels in the geologic column floods in different locations and some with no floods at all. If there were a global flood we'd see a universally dated flood (much as we see a universal iridium layer at the major asteroid impact 65 million years ago). This by itself should be enough.

Third, and related to the above, we don't see any global die off that is closely connected to flood deposits.

Fourth, we don't see the genetic bottlenecking that would have wiped out that many species. The genetic diversity of many species shows us that a global flood could not have occurred in the last 50,000 years at least, on genetic evidence alone.

So the upshot? No global flood in the last 50,000 years just by easy genetic evidence. No global flood at all given lack of water. No global flood at all based on the geologic columns. If it turned out there had been a global flood anytime in the last billion years, we'd have to be so wrong about so much of basic science that it is difficult to find a good analogy for how wrong we'd have to be. We'd have to be about as wrong as it turning out that Julius Caesar never existed.