A Denver science museum found its newest fossil by accident… in its own parking lot : NPR

Denver museum officials found a fossil 750 feet under a parking lot through a 5-inch opening.

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST: The Denver Museum of Nature and Science just got a reminder of an old lesson – location, location, location. The museum has a very popular dinosaur exhibit. You can even take a selfie with a T. rex skull. But the museum’s newest fossil wasn’t found in a faraway cave or valley. It was under its own parking lot. The museum was exploring the idea of geothermal heating for the building, so they drilled a 750-foot-deep hole there. And they found something, all right, but it wasn’t steam. It was a fossil. It’s too small to know what it is exactly, but experts are guessing a duck-billed dinosaur.Here’s the thing. The hole was deep, but it was only 5 inches wide. Finding a dinosaur fossil anywhere in the world this way is highly improbable. Only two have been found through an opening this small before. James Hagadorn, the Museum’s curator of geology, says finding a fossil underneath the parking lot is like hitting a hole-in-one from the moon. It’s like winning the Willy Wonka factory. Museum officials say there are no plans to dig further under the parking lot because, well, people need a place to park when they come to visit.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

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