Dinosaur Provincial Park

Dinosaur Provincial Park

Dinosaur Provincial Park - located at the heart of Alberta's badlands - contains some of the most important fossil discoveries ever made from the 'Age of Reptiles', in particular very not quite 35 species of dinosaur, dating encouragement some 75 million years.

Dinosaur Provincial Park is located in the Dry Mixedgrass Subregion of the Grassland Natural Region. This is the warmest and driest subregion in Alberta. Permanent streams are relatively rare, although the ones that get hold of grip of exist are intensely carved into the bedrock in some places. This as exposed Cretaceous shales and sandstones, creating extensive badlands, the largest in Canada.

Great rivers that flowed here 75 million years ago left sand and mud deposits that make going on the valley walls, hills and hoodoos of militant-daylight Dinosaur Provincial Park. About 15,000 years ago this place was flat and covered by an ice sheet some 600 m thick. During this ice age, glacial melt water carved steep-sided channels; ice crystals, wind and flowing water continued to impinge on the badlands. Today, water from prairie creeks and manage-off continues to sculpt the landscape and appearance bedrock.

During the late Cretaceous grow primeval, 75 million years ago, the landscape was every one every second. The climate was subtropical, following lush forests covering a coastal plain. Rivers flowed east, across the plain into the Bearpaw hot inland sea. The low swampy country was dwelling to a variety of animals, including dinosaurs. The conditions were furthermore resolved for the preservation of their bones as fossils. Between 1979 and 1991, a sum of 23,347 fossil specimens were collected, including 300 dinosaur skeletons.

Geological strata of the Judith River formation have yielded many of the dinosaur remains for which the park is quickly-known. Some 35 species of anew 34 genera of 12 families of dinosaurs have been found in the park, including specimens from all known action of dinosaurs from the Cretaceous era. The families Hadrasauridae, Ornithomimidae, Tyrannosauridae, Nodosauridae, Pachycephalosauridae and Ceratopsidae are best represented. Other fossil remains embellish fish, turtles, marsupials and amphibians.

About 6% of the park is occupied by significant and, for the most income, undisturbed riparian residence shaped by the meandering channel of the Red Deer River and characterized by improvement bars, broad terraces, fans and scrape banks.

The river terraces hold lush and diverse vegetation in various successional stages, ranging from traveler willow stands to structurally higher plains, cottonwood reforest, high shrub thickets, ephemeral wetlands and dense sagebrush flats. Plains cottonwood riparian communities are in addition to the most threatened habitats in semi-arid regions. The 'badlands' pay for dwelling for a number of ecologically specialized forest species and are characterized by entry vegetation dominated by flora and fauna of the genus Artemisia and the family Chenopodiaceae. Remnant and recently created grasslands occur taking place for buttes and large pediments.

The mild winter microclimate, coupled subsequent to an abundant food supply, provides vital winter range for original ungulates such as pronghorn, mule deer and white-tailed deer. The relative richness and abundance of breeding avifauna is noteworthy. Over 150 species of bird have been recorded. The place supports a number of species locally threatened or at their biogeographic limits, including golden eagle, prairie falcon, ferruginous hawk, loggerhead shrike, merlin, sparrow and grasshopper sparrow. Plains spade-foot toad with occurs.