Scientists discover 67.5-million-year-old dinosaur fossil beneath Denver Museum parking lot
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
in Colorado located an approximately 67.5-million-year-old partial
dinosaur
bone 763 feet below its parking lot. What makes it a special discovery is that it is the oldest and deepest ever found in Denver. The museum, which has been popular and has attracted visitors for decades to see the fossilized bones of prehistoric behemoths, is filled with exhibits of dinosaur skeletons.
The
fossil
was unearthed as part of a drilling project that was undertaken with the purpose of better understanding the geology of the Denver Basin, according to media reports. As a part of the project, the museum wanted to understand the geology to see if it would be possible to replace natural gas with geothermal systems to heat and cool the museum.
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'This partial vertebra from a plant-eating dinosaur offers an extraordinary glimpse into prehistoric Denver and the animals that inhabited this area,' the museum wrote in a statement, as quoted by Popular Mechanics.
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Two drilling rigs drilled test holes beneath a paved parking lot at the museum, going nearly 1,000 feet deep. Earlier in 2025, one of the museum's geologists spotted a dinosaur bone while sorting through the finds, instantly sparking excitement among the staff.
"There are never fossil emergencies," Hagadorn said in an interview. "But that was a fossil emergency," James Hagadorn, the museum's curator of geology, said in an interview.
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'It's like winning a lottery': Museum curator on dinosaur bone discovery
What are the chances of discovering a dinosaur bone in a core sample that's only 2.5 inches wide? 'It's basically like winning the lottery and getting struck by lightning on the same day,' says James Hagadorn, the museum's curator of geology, in the statement.
Bob Raynolds, an Earth scientist who has been associated with the museum for 35 years, described the discovery as 'nothing short of magical.' It is, however, still not clear which species the bone came from, but media reports suggest that experts suspect the creature may have been similar to Thescelosaurus or Edmontosaurus. These two dinosaurs were known to have roamed the region around the same time.
How Did Scientists Discover the Age
The scientists used the existing map of the horizon and measured the depth of various fossil discoveries in the area and compared them with the one made in January 2025 to find out the estimated age of 70 million years.
The fossil is cylindrical and just inches long, and there is a chance that it is a part of a bigger bone. The fossil is too small to be linked to a specific dinosaur. The museum team, though, hypothesizes that it belonged to an ornithopod, a small herbivore. It is also believed that this may be the oldest
dinosaur fossil
found in the Denver area.
Following the latest major discovery, scientists at the museum are confident that there are more fossils buried in the excavated materials from the drilled core and have been combing through them to see if there are others.
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