CR2011: Dinosaur Provincial Park

We settled into our motel in Brooks, Alberta, for the night. Dinosaur Provincial Park awaited us, only a short drive away. This park is a World Heritage Site, and one of the major dinosaur fossil beds on the planet. It rates several mentions in the March 2012 issue of Scientific American, in an article discussing the density and distribution of dinosaur species on the late Cretaceous continent of Laramidia.

The drive north out of Brooks is pure prairie, flat and simple. There is no hint that anything unusual, let alone as dramatic as a badlands, is lurking nearby. The early morning air is cool. Then, there is a parking area with flagpoles and signs, seemingly in the center of nowhere. This is the entrance to the Park, and the site of the Prairie Trail, a brief (300 meter) but instructive walk. Here is a Google Maps view of the area, with the trail to the left of the parking area.

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The view of the badlands includes the Red Deer River peeking out just above and to the left of center.

The sign about the Prairie Trail (click to enlarge).

The parking area and the short walk, at this early hour, were being visited by at least a dozen western meadowlarks, which sound nothing like the eastern species, at least to my ear.

Also resting here is the Siska Glyphstone, guarded by steel tubing.

A sign details the history of this stone.

Then it was time to drive down into the badlands, to the visitor center, and purchase tickets for a guided tour.

Having arrived for our visit after the Labor Day weekend, the guided hikes or other such programs weren't being offered, but there was one bus tour today, and only one. We arrived early to make sure we would get on it.

In the badlands erosional features dominate the landscape, including gullies and hoodoos. Here is a photo montage of some of them, both from the bus tour and from later walks.

At our second stop, we were free to wander (in a limited area) and look for fossils, which our guide knew were there, having been discovered many times by many visitors.

Then it was time for an explanation of fossil preparation, which required a volunteer.

The fossil bones are taken, still largely encased in rock, to laboratories for careful extraction. Protecting them in transit from their remote bedding sites are several layers of burlap and plaster, a technique over a hundred years old.

As you can see from the strong shadows and blue sky, the sun was blasting down on us, and the temperatures were rising. It would reach about 93°F today. The bus was not air-conditioned; if it was supposed to be, today it was just recirculating the air. Our guide handed out plastic bottles of water with a squeeze handle, so that you could create a fine mist above your head. Back in Ohio, a land of 85° temperatures and 85% humidity, this technique would be futile. In the arid plains of Alberta, it does surprisingly well at cooling the air around your face for a few minutes. Also we were frequently disembarking from the bus, and the bugs were not out today.

The next stop was a small locked shed of concrete blocks, to which our guide had the key. Inside was a corythosaurus skeleton, left as it had been discovered.

Our guide did a great job of explaining how these bones arrived, jumbled, at this spot. If you needed a review, there was a detailed wall panel.

Here is a better look at the bones.

Continuing on, we passed the camel formation, a pair of hoodoos that resemble a dromedary (D for one hump) camel.

When we arrived back at the visitor's center, we decided to walk the Coulee Viewpoint Trail (0.9 km) first, before the day got any hotter, and to investigate the center afterwards. From that trail, there is a panoramic view of Little Sandhill Creek.

A plaque describes the ice-age forces that created these coulees (click to enlarge).

Further metamorphosis was performed by the interaction of water and clay.

The trail let us explore high points and low.

The visitor's center is very well done, including a theater and a reconstruction of an early fossil-hunter's turn-of-the-2oth-century campsite. There is a gallery depicting a pack of small carnivorous dinosaurs attacking a much larger prey.

For the next stage of our visit we returned to our car and took the self-guided driving loop, with several stops for exhibits and hiking paths. The first stop was the Badlands Trail (1.3 km).

The black blob you see in Joan's hand is an umbrella, partially closed for the photo op. We called them sunbrellas, and they ward off the relentless afternoon sun magnificently.

This trail has some ups and downs, but it's scenic!

One of the reasons that the coulees of the badlands are so treacherous is the high proportion of bentonite in the clays, probably sodium bentonite.

If you were down in the coulee and it started to rain, you were at risk for flash flooding -- with no way to climb the slick sides. Yet another reason these are "bad" lands.

Along the public loop road there are two fossil houses, where special items are protected from the elements but available for viewing through glass. I took pictures only at the "headless hadrosaur" fossil house.

I've combined two of the signs there:

Next was the Trail of the Fossil Hunters (0.9 km). This out-and-back trail takes you to one of the original fossil dig sites in the park.

The small structure at far left is the distant second fossil house. The trail gently climbs from there to avoid rough terrain, and then, just right of center in the photo, turns and winds towards the dig site.

Our final walk was the Cottonwood Flats Trail (1.4 km), for which I have no photos. This trail takes you through the cottonwood trees, voracious consumers of water, that depend on the flooding habits of the Red Deer River. Again, Google Maps reveals the trail:

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When the course of the Red Deer shifts, established cottonwoods wither for lack of water, and new ones must spring up. The germination of the cottonwood seeds depends upon their landing on the mud of the riverbanks just as the spring floods recede. It's a Goldilocks situation, because the ground must be wet enough, but not too wet.

Then it was time to return to Brooks to rehydrate and rest. Tomorrow, Drumheller.