The minister of Culture and Multiculturalism MLA Leela Aheer got a chance to go behind the scene to see how the fossils are treated and then prepared for display.  One thing that is difficult for museums is to keep patrons coming back and that is what the staff at the Royal Tyrell Museum have tried to do with their new exhibit.  Dr. Craig Scott,  Director for the museum Talks about the new display, "Fossils in focus exhibit which is our annual changing exhibit , that exhibit is really important to us because it provides visitor and especially our returning visitor with something new to see every year they can be guaranteed that our exhibit will change every year. Museums all suffer form one thing, it is very difficult to change exhibits for a variety reason many of them are large scale built-in exhibits they are difficult to change, they are very costly." 

When most people look at the skeletal remains of the dinosaur they may not appreciate that it is like a giant puzzle that you may not know the total number of pieces or what the end result may be, oh did we mention that it has been covered in thousands of tons of rock.  This process is extremely meticulous and time-consuming but thankfully they have the right tools.  Dr. Lorna Obrien describes the tools used, "Some of the main tools are air scrubs, Essentially they are mini jackhammers and they mechanically remove the rock from the surface of the fossil. Other tools we use include is scalpel blades, so something that is very small or soft we can use a sharp scalpel blade to remove it. We can get a lot of dexterity with that and a lot of fine detail."

Aheer was extremely ecstatic that this exhibit calls our province home, "Dinosaurs sell themselves, we don't need to talk about the Tyrell museum as such they get a lot of visitors every year, but the actual displays that are coming there is a huge opportunity for education. I'm a child a heart when it comes to these things it really makes me excited and really really happy to be able to share this and have this amazing, amazing museum in our province, what a gem."

Fossils In Focus features displays of the Mosasaurs which is an aquatic lizard that hunted the oceans and a rare bone bed that has 10 individual turtles preserved together in one spot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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