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Apr 13, 2009 7:26 pm US/Central
Time Running Out On Arlington Dinosaur Dig
UTA Researches Close To Solving Prehistoric Puzzle
ARLINGTON (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
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The duck-billed dinosaur Protohadros.
It may not be Jurassic Park, but on a 1,700 acre site in North Arlington, some people would like to think so.
"A dinosaur site of this magnitude in the middle of the city is pretty unusual," said Ph.D. student Derek Main, an expert in dinosaur ecology at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Students from UTA and the University of Texas at Dallas have been digging for dinosaurs for roughly a year and half.
Dallas freshman Alison Beatty said, "Instead of going to Africa or China, I get to have this experience right here; digging up dinosaurs, trees and stuff. It's totally cool!"
Everything started in 2003 when Art Sahlstein and his daughter went for a summer walk. "We walked up on an embankment and sat down. That's when Olivia reached down and pulled out a vertebrae piece from the ground," he explained.
It took four years for paleontologists to convince the owner to let them excavate the land. Now scientists find themselves in a race against time.
Students are looking for a dinosaur called a Protohadros. The duck-billed dino is about the size of a pickup truck and, according to UTA researchers, was once indigenous to Texas.
Main is leading the expedition and says his team of students has uncovered 70-percent of the dinosaur's skeleton. The bones are being stored on the UTA campus. "What we have here is almost everything except the skull. We have the main part of the body," Main said pointing at the bones. "If we find the skull, then we can say for certain whether this is Protohadros or maybe a new dinosaur entirely."
If the bones are from a Protohadros, it wouldn't be the first such discovery in North Texas. Scientists say, 100 million years ago, the Dallas/Fort Worth area was fertile ground for the Protohadros.
If the bones turn out to be a new breed of dinosaur, the discovery will be one for the records.
The clock however, is ticking. The excavation site is scheduled to be cleared in October, for a massive development project.
The deadline has forced the so called "fossil finders" to dig at a frantic pace. UTA researches say they will continue to scour the site at least three times a month before the past is covered up once again.
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