![Geological Survey of Canada Geological Survey of Canada](/web/20061103025158im_/http://www.gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/esst_images/gsc_e.jpeg) Natural Resources Canada > Earth Sciences Sector > Geological Survey of Canada > Past lives: Chronicles of Canadian Paleontology
Past lives: Chronicles of Canadian Paleontology Tyrrell and Albertosaurus
J.B. Tyrrell spent most of his long career as a geologist, explorer
and entrepreneur on the Canadian Shield. However, in 1884 his first field
work was in Cretaceous strata along the Red Deer River where his discovery
of a skull of the tyrannosaur Albertosaurus provided a name to the
paleontological museum in Drumheller.
![Reconstruction of the theropod dinosaur Albertosaurus from Tyrrell Museum display. (Photo by BDEC (c).) Reconstruction of the theropod dinosaur Albertosaurus from Tyrrell Museum display. (Photo by BDEC (c).)](/web/20061103025158im_/http://www.gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/paleochron/images/asaurus1.jpg) Reconstruction of the theropod dinosaur Albertosaurus from Tyrrell Museum display.
(Photo by BDEC (c).) |
Joseph Burr Tyrrell was not a paleontologist and he claimed no priority
in the discovery of dinosaurs in the Red Deer River Valley. And yet, it is
his name that is attached to the premier paleontological museum in North
America -- the one with a major focus on Red Deer Valley dinosaurs -- the
Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller.
The scientific discovery of dinosaurs in what is now southern
Saskatchewan and Alberta was made in 1874 by George Mercer Dawson, the
Canadian representative on the International Boundary Commission which was
charged with examining the territory along the 49th Parallel. In 1881, an
unexpected decision by the Canadian Pacific syndicate changed the
subsequent settlement and development patterns of the prairies. Sandford
Fleming's surveyed route of the CPR main line across the West -- one to
go follow the fertile valley of the North Saskatchewan through Battleford,
Edmonton and then the Yellowhead Pass -- was abandoned and replaced by a
new route through the arid belt 300 kilometres to the south. The future
cities of Regina, Medicine Hat, Calgary and Banff owe their existence to
the CPR's decision -- as did many new discoveries of dinosaurs in the
Red Deer River valley..
The Geological Survey of Canada had only sketchy information about the
geology and distribution of coal along this new southern route. To rectify
this, Dawson who joined the Survey in 1881, was immediately sent west to
investigate the geology of the Bow and Belly rivers area. He was assisted
by the geologist Richard McConnell, the fossil collector Thomas Weston and
by a recent arts graduate from the University of Toronto, Joseph Tyrrell.
From 1881-83 Dawson's party mapped and gathered information in advance
of the CPR surveyors on the plains and along the front of the mountains.
They identified many coal deposits and, incidentally, located a number of
fossil sites, some with dinosaurs.
![J.B. Tyrrell about the time of his graduation from University of Toronto in 1881. (GSC photo 201735 (c).) J.B. Tyrrell about the time of his graduation from University of Toronto in 1881. (GSC photo 201735 (c).)](/web/20061103025158im_/http://www.gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/paleochron/images/jbtyrell2.jpg) J.B. Tyrrell about the time of his graduation from University of Toronto in 1881.
(GSC photo 201735 (c).) |
With little formal geological education and less field experience, at
the age of 26 Tyrrell was surprised to be given charge of his own field
party. In 1884, he set out to investigate the geology of the area north of
the Bow River that had been assigned to him. He hired three men and canoed
down the Red Deer River to examine the Cretaceous exposures. Later that
summer he discovered a relatively intact skull of a large carnivorous
dinosaur near present-day Drumheller. At the time there were no
paleontologists in Canada knowledgeable about dinosaurs. Professor E.D.
Cope of Philadelphia identified the skull as Laelaps incrassatus,
but in 1905 Henry Fairfield Osborne of the American Museum of Natural
History proposed that this skull be the type of new genus and
species -- Albertosaurus sarcophagus. Albertosaurus, a
slightly smaller cousin of Tyrannosaurus, is now the marquee
specimen of the museum in Drumheller named for J.B. Tyrrell.
The discovery of the Albertosaurus skull signalled the end of
Tyrrell's connection with dinosaurs and the Red Deer River valley. He is
well-known in geographic circles in Canada for completing two epochal
expeditions across the Barren Lands of the District of Keewatin in the
early 1890s. In 1899, after a disagreement with GSC Director George M.
Dawson over his salary, he quit the Survey to become a mining consultant
in the Klondike. Later, he became a millionaire as a result of his
successful management of gold mines at Kirkland Lake, Ontario. He was then
able to indulge his passion about the history of exploration in Canada.
Tyrrell resurrected David Thompson's legacy by editing his journal which
was published by the Champlain Society.
Further reading:
Spalding, David. |
2000: |
Into the Dinosaurs' Graveyard: Canadian Digs and Discoveries. Doubleday Canada, 305 p. |
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