Our visit to the
Royal Tyrell Dinosaur Museum and Badlands in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada a few days ago was a lovely, amazing surprise to me.
Driving into Drumheller, one sees dinosaurs everywhere in the form of humorous plaster figures, some large, some smaller, cute and kind of kitschy, but they led me to believe that the museum itself might be more of the same.
WRONG! The Royal Tyrell Dinosaur Museum is a world reknown center of paleontological research, with astounding displays of life forms covering the 3.9 billion year history of life on earth.
On entering the museum, visitors are greeted by a life-like exhibit of Albertosaurus, the flesh eating dinosaur discovered in that area in 1884 by a man searching for coal seams. It soon became apparent that this region of Alberta contained a rich and varied collection of fossilized life forms, which continue to be protected, are reported to the government and then carefully excavated and examined.
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| Model of Albertosaurus on entering the museum |
The museum takes its visitors from that first display through an introduction to the geology of the area, displays that explain how fossils come to be, displays of fossils of various life forms - both plant and animal - and concludes this section with a side by side display demonstrating the way fossils are usually found, and how some extremely lucky finds are made.
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| The scattered way most fossils are found and have to be put together by paleontologists like a giant puzzle |
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| The way fossils are found in rare and very fortunate circumstances |
The next section of the museum includes a viewing area where visitors can watch paleontologists working on cleaning fossils. This latter area also displays examples of the tools used for this type of research, such as dental picks and drills, and exhibits about how fossils are prepared and protected for storage or display. These displays end with "Black Beauty" Tyranosaurus Rex named that because mineral deposits pigmented the bones black. This display demonstrates the remarkable result of painstaking effort of many years, by many scientists who have built their lives around educating themselves and the rest of us about a past that otherwise would be lost.
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| The head on the floor in front is the REAL one, which was too heavy to mount for display, so a plaster cast substitute was added to the exhibited skeleton. |
From there you enter a series of chronological galleries with beautifully done exhibits of the life forms of the various time periods, which are introduced with the following chart and reinforced throughout the exhibits. There are many interactive sections where children are encouraged to touch, feel, think and fully experience this remarkable museum and the people who do this kind of research and work.
Throughout the museum, the written explanations about the displays serve to not only inform, but to whet the appetite for additional information.
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| Part of a section representing early marine life |
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| Throughout the museum, displays of fossil animals are shown against a backdrop of artwork that depicts the imagined real scene at the time. |
Docents walk around the museum and offer tours or additional information about displays. We encountered such a docent who told us with great excitement about the exceptionally well-preserved
nodosaur that had only gone on display days before our arrival. The nodosaur had been found with many external protective plates intact, even sections of skin preserved, and remarkably had even preserved the stomach contents so those studying this sample could determine what it had eaten for its last meal! I was so enthralled by this one that I neglected to take photos - please follow the link in this paragraph to read more about this remarkable find.
A visit to the museum is not complete without taking the walking tour through the adjacent
badlands to get a greater understanding of the geology of this particular area. If you are in Alberta, a visit to the Royal Tyrell is an experience not to be missed!
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