T-Rex Skull and Fossil Arrive at Seattle Museum; How Old Is It?
Seattle Burke Museum receives a 2,500 pound dinosaur skull Thursday
Well-kept Tyrannosaurus Rex fossils were discovered by two paleontology volunteers, Luke Tufts and Jason Love, while scouting for some artifacts around the Hell Creek Formation, hence its differing but cute name "Tufts-Love Rex."
They learned about the existence of the rare T. Rex remains when they noticed bones and a dinosaur's tooth obtruding the surface. Using axes, jackhammers, and shovels, a team of eight to ten people dug into the area for over two weeks to uncover the then-assumed remains. They had to take out a portion of the hillside which is 16 feet wide made up mostly of rock materials. When the first signs of the remains slowly appeared, they used smaller tools to carefully take out and not to cause any injury to the rest of the artifact.
Immediately upon recovery, the team concealed the gigantic skull into a plaster cast, hauled it up onto a truck and sent it to Seattle, with the support of several local Montana ranchers.
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Hardly-damaged fossils
The Daily Mail UK reports that the dinosaur is found to be 85 percent the size of the biggest T. Rex discovered. There are 14 other T-Rex skull fossils which are as complete as the artifacts recently deposited to the Burke Museum in Seattle.
Along with the 4-foot skull were of the same dinosaur's vertebrae, lower jaw bones, hips and ribs. All of these fossils were in plaster cast when it arrived at the Burke Museum Thursday.
CBS says that the volume and size of the skull reveal its 15 years of existence on Earth. Scientists say that the said T. Rex journeyed through the Earth in the later part of the Cretaceous period or around 66 million years ago.
But wait… Are there more?
University of Washington biologist Greg Wilson who led the digging at Montana's Hell Creek Formation confirmed that they will be checking the area again. Wilson told GeekWire during the arrival ceremony how sure he was that their team will find more in the same dinosaur-fossil haven.
This recent discovery is a very rare fossil find. This puts Burke Museum's latest T. Rex remains among the top 25 in the world.
Wilson told CBS that "the Tufts-Love Rex is going to be an iconic specimen for the Burke Museum and the state of Washington and will be a must-see for dinosaur researchers as well."
