Come to the Museum and see the latest addition to our family.  In the Museum's exhibit gallery you can look up to see our full size prosauropod skeleton.  Plateosaurus engelhardti is one of the most well know prosauropod dinosaurs, and this replica will thrill the child in everyone.

It's  the beginning of an adventure!  While visiting the Museum you can also look into our Research Lab and see Lab Technicians uncovering real prosauropod dinosaur bones.   Many of the bones that have been uncovered are already on display.  Imagine seeing real dinosaur bones 200 million years old, or a real dinosaur footprint so clear you can see what the skin looked like.

 Watch over the web as Lab Technicians uncover a nearly complete dinosaur. 

The dinosaurs of Nova Scotia are very important because they are rare examples of the animals that survived a major mass extinction event that occurred 200 million years ago. 
 

"This is the only place where you can see accurately dated, the change in the animal assemblage through that critical time when the dinosaurs began to rule the earth."

The Prosauropod dinosaurs being studied at the museum are examples of animals that survived the mass extinction.  Scientists at the Museum are trying to find out what permitted them to survive such a dramatically changing world.

Nearly half of the Triassic creatures failed to survive this threshold of time. Some scientists believe that the extinctions or "great dyings" that have been repeated many times throughout geological history are related to catastrophic events, perhaps asteroids hurtling into the earth. The fossil evidence at Parrsboro strongly suggests a "catastrophic extinction" heralded the dawning of the dinosaurs' reign at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. 
 

In April 1984, Parrsboro fossil collector Eldon George uncovered some of the world's smallest dinosaur footprints. The three-toed, half inch long footprints were made by a creature no bigger than a robin. Other trackways along the North Shore of the Minas Basin indicate that most Triassic-Jurassic age dinosaurs were turkey to ostrich size. According to Olsen, this adds to the growing body of evidence that some dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded like birds, without having to be large. However, there are also abundant 18-inch tracks belonging to the Otozoum, thought to be made by a long-legged relative of the crocodiles or by a plant eating Prosauropod. A number of these footprints can be seen at the Parrsboro Rock and Mineral Shop. With predators like this stalking the mudflats, only the fast runners risked venturing onto the exposed lakeshore. 

The cause of the great dyings is only one, though perhaps the most significant, question the Parrsboro fossil trove may answer. Each year the famed Fundy tides expose new materials. However, because the fossils are concentrated in relatively small areas and the answers they hold are so important to science, it is vital that all fossils are preserved for study. The Special Places Protection Act protects all fossils found in the province for the benefit of everyone. A brochure describing the Act may be obtained free of charge from the Nova Scotia Museum.