Articles for category: Fossils & Fieldwork

grayscale photo of skeleton

Smithsonian Fossils Come Alive: Exploring Dinosaurs in Washington, D.C.

Standing in the heart of our nation’s capital, surrounded by monuments to human achievement, lies a treasure trove that predates civilization by millions of years. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History houses one of the world’s most spectacular collections of dinosaur fossils, transforming ancient bones into living stories that continue to reshape our understanding ...

Archaeopteryx

Fossil Formation 101: Why Most Bones Never Become Fossils

Picture this: a massive dinosaur collapses on an ancient riverbank, its final breath escaping into the prehistoric air. You might think this giant creature is destined to become the next museum centerpiece, but the shocking truth is that its bones will most likely vanish without a trace. What sounds like a guaranteed fossil is actually ...

Vulnerability of Dinosaur Eggs

The First Known Dino Nest — and the Drama It Unleashed

Picture this: you’re standing in the windswept badlands of Montana, and beneath your feet lies a secret that’s been buried for 75 million years. A secret so profound that it would spark decades of heated arguments, challenge everything we thought we knew about dinosaurs, and forever change how we view these ancient giants. This isn’t ...

The Burgess Shale: Earth's Weirdest Prehistoric Creatures

The Burgess Shale: Earth’s Weirdest Prehistoric Creatures

Hidden high in the Canadian Rockies lies one of the most extraordinary windows into Earth’s ancient past. The Burgess Shale, a fossil deposit that’s been quietly preserving life’s strangest experiments for over 500 million years, contains creatures so bizarre they seem pulled from an alien planet. These aren’t your typical dinosaur fossils – we’re talking ...

A close up of a dinosaur in a forest

5 Bizarre Dinosaur Adaptations Scientists Still Can’t Explain

Deep in the fossil record lies a treasure trove of mysteries that continue to baffle even the most brilliant paleontologists. While we’ve learned incredible amounts about dinosaurs since the first discoveries in the 1800s, some adaptations remain so peculiar that they defy conventional scientific explanation. These ancient creatures developed features so bizarre that they seem ...

Rocky mountain slope under a clear blue sky. The rugged terrain is composed of jagged, beige and brown rocks with sparse patches of greenery.

Dino Graveyards: Why So Many Fossils Are Found in the Same Spot

Imagine stumbling upon a prehistoric cemetery where dinosaurs from millions of years ago lie perfectly preserved, their bones telling stories of ancient catastrophes and lost worlds. These aren’t just random fossil discoveries scattered across the globe—they’re concentrated burial grounds where dozens, sometimes hundreds, of dinosaur remains cluster together in what scientists call “bone beds.” From ...

Fossil of a small dinosaur

Are There Dinosaur Bones That Aren’t Technically Fossils?

When most people think about dinosaur remains, they picture the massive skeletons displayed in museums – those awe-inspiring bone structures that seem to defy time itself. But here’s something that might blow your mind: not all “dinosaur bones” you see are actually bones at all. Some of the most famous dinosaur specimens in the world ...