Strange Place to Find an Iguanodon Bone - Sunderland

Iguanodon fossils, (a type of dinosaur), although rare,b>sbo do sometimes get found in southern England, places such as East Sussex and the Isle of Wight for example, but to have an Iguanodontid vertebra turn up in a garden 300 miles further north from where most of the UK Iguanodontid fossils come from is bizarre. The fossilised bone about the size of a football has been identified as belonging to an Early Cretaceous Ornithopod Dinosaur - an Iguanodontid, but the single bone and its unusual location makes it very difficult to tie down to a specific genus. Palaeontologists remain puzzled as to how a bone from a Cretaceous dinosaur ended up in a pensioner's back garden in Sunderland. Scientists had been informed of this remarkable discovery and the finding of a dinosaur bone in garden in north-east England is amazing,sbo this is one of the last places on Earth where you would go to look for Cretaceous dinosaur bones. The pensioner, who wishes to remain anonymous took the specimen to a local museum, where experts confirmed it was a dinosaur bone. Staff at the Natural History Museum (London) have confirmed this and concluded that the bone probably came from a large Iguanodon,sbo a herbivorous dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous. How Did a Dinosaur End Up in Sunderland? How the bone came to be in Sunderland remains a mystery. The underlying strata is much older than rocks which contain dinosaur bones this means the bone must have been deposited there later on. Many of the Iguanodontid fossils unearthed in the UK were found in the East Sussex area, more than 300 miles to the south of Sunderland. They lived 130-115 million years ago, at a time when southern England was a warm,sbobet lush tropical paradise in which dinosaurs and Pterosaurs flourished. Experts will never know how the bone made it to Wearside, but glacial disturbance or human interference are considered most likely. Rocks could have been transported by glacial action and re-deposited,sbobet or perhaps this specimen was found in southern England and brought up north by an amateur fossil hunter. Local Museum Staff Amazed by Discovery Staff at the local museum in Sunderland stated that they were very grateful to our museum visitor for bringing this amazing find in to them.sbobet It will always remain a mystery as to how it found its way there, and if the pensioner hadn't been digging up their garden it could have lain undiscovered. The person who found it wishes to remain anonymous, but has kindly agreed to loan it to Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens so that the people of the region can enjoy this unusual find. They can have their very own "Sunderland Dinosaur". Most of the underlying strata in the Wearside area dates from the Late Palaeozoic era, being composed of mainly limestones, mudstones and sandstones dating from the Permian period. There is a small band of Permian rocks which run roughly in a line from Nottingham in the East Midlands, northwards to the city of Sunderland before disappearing out under the North Sea, these rocks are largely devoid of fossils. There have been other, occasional reports of dinosaur bones turning up in some very unusual places, for example,sbo a scientist literally tripped over a number of caudal vertebrae belonging to an Edmontosaurus when inspecting a motocross trackway in Alberta - you just never know what might turn up. However,sbobet to find a dinosaur fossil bone in a garden in Sunderland must go down as one of the more bizarre locations to find the remains of a dinosaur.