While mapping geological formations at the Indio Mountains Research Station, a natural laboratory owned by the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), structural geologist and associate professor of earth, environmental and resource sciences Jason Ricketts, Ph.D., noticed something strange peeking out of the soil.
There were fragments that weren’t part of the landscape which were later identified as belonging to a Tenontosaurus, a dinosaur usually found in parts of Arizona, Colorado and Central Texas. The fossils had been buried for more than 115 million years and expanded the species’ known range. It also marked one of the first fossilized dinosaur bones ever uncovered in the El Paso region.
Ricketts said he was not even looking for fossils that day; in fact, paleontology wasn’t on his mind…