Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/370921
(top left, middle) liz bryan, (top right, above) cfdc F a l l 2 0 1 4 | g o i n g p l a c e s 21 ash washed into the sea, layer upon layer, from gigantic eruptions that accompanied such earth- changing events as the formation of the Rocky Mountains. e fossils in the shale were first found here back in the 1930s by miners w h o h a c k e d t h r o u g h them to reach the bentonite, a valuable com- modity used in a wide range of commercial applications including cosmetics, cat litter and winemaking. Once news of the fossils leaked out, paleontologists scrambled to the Pem- bina Hills. Since then, a huge variety of marine specimens have been discovered, many of them super-sized: huge lizard-like creatures known as mosasaurs, 15 metres from snout to tail; long-necked plesiosaurs; turtles four metres long; and giant fish weighing almost 300 kilograms. I can't wait to get at them. N early a thousand specimens are in the Fossil Discover y Centre, some of them replicas displayed against giant dioramas. Star of the main gallery is Bruce, a 13-metre-long mosasaur with a monstrous jaw, flippers instead of legs and a seemingly endless tail used for propulsion. There are three subfamilies of mosasaurs: Bruce is a tylosaur, the biggest of them all. Discovered just north of Morden, he needed two full field seasons of hard work to bring him in, his fos- silized remains carefully wrapped in burlap and plaster (just like a broken leg), followed by months of painstaking work to separate the fossil from the hard matrix. Described as "sleek, vicious and fast," mosasaurs ruled the Cretaceous seas for 20 million years until wiped out by the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction, which knocked out the terrestrial dinosaurs too, some 65 million years ago. I stare in amazement at Bruce's huge recon- structed skeleton – face like a crocodile and a jaw full of vicious teeth – and take a photo for Billy. We are also given a privileged look at the lab where museum curator Joseph Hooker and his technicians are hard at work. The archives, with drawers stacked to the ceiling, contain thousands of dusty fossils all cata- logued and ready for study. Finally, it's out into the field. I t's a late summer afternoon, a hot and muggy Manitoba day. We have driven from the museum into the Pembina Hills, then hiked a bit down a dusty road and tramped along a trail through wildflowers to get here. There are seven of us, all women, standing around swatting off mosquitoes and wonder- ing how to proceed. is was supposed to be a dig. But where are the shovels? Chelsey Delaquis, our guide, throws off the plastic tarps that cover a bit of a flat area dug into the east side of a deep drainage ditch. Underneath, in a cleared section of crumbly sun-baked soil, there is, at first glance, nothing of interest. Then I notice a smooth reddish section about the size of my fist, and other, smaller pieces – then some more. These are the fossils we have come to dig. Looking at the uncovered pieces, spread across several metres, there seems to be a huge beast impris- oned in the earth here, just aching to get out. Exposed in front of us are several levels of the Pierre shale deposits, dating from about 80 million years ago. ree years ago, paleon- tologists and volunteers like us unearthed in Drawers at the Fossil Discovery Centre are filled with fossils from digs. The fossilized remains of a mosasaur's flipper. Visitors gain new insights about marine reptiles. Large areas just north of Morden are being excavated to locate more fossils.