— from Associated Press and King5news.com —
Dinosaur bones found on Sucia Island, displayed at Burke Museum
Scientists have uncovered Washington’s first dinosaur fossil, in a state park on the San Juan Islands. Paleontologists announced the find on May 20, at Seattle’s Burke Museum. According to scientists, the fossil is approximately 80 million years old.
Burke Museum researchers found part of the left femur of a theropod dinosaur while collecting fossils of a sea creature on the shores of Sucia Island State Park.
Researchers say dinosaurs are found in rocks from the time periods in which they lived, 240 million to 66 million years ago. Washington state was mostly underwater during that time period, so the state had little exposed rock of the right age.
The fossil is incomplete, so scientists can’t identify the exact species. It measures 16.7 inches long and 8.7 inches wide.
By comparing the bone to other museum fossils, scientists calculated that the femur was likely over 3 feet long, just smaller than that of a tyrannosaurus rex.
The theropod is from a group of two-legged, carnivorous dinosaurs that includes velociraptor and tyrannosaurus rex and modern birds.
Washington is now the 37th state where dinosaurs have been found.
The therapod dinosaur fossil was found in the San Juan Islands and is approximately 80 million years old.
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