An accidental discovery of a 3D fossil reveals the dinosaur's mysterious death
Graham Duggan Parts of Alberta are libraries of Earth's history, treasure troves of fossils from animals that lived millions of years ago. But sometimes, an especially rare gem is found. In Dinosaur Cold Case, a documentary from The Nature of Things, we meet the remarkable dinosaur known as Borealopelta — preserved in eye-popping 3D. Paleontologists are solving the mystery of what killed it, how it came to rest at the bottom of a prehistoric sea and how it was preserved so perfectly. The accidental discovery of an incredible dinosaur In March 2011, Shawn Funk, a shovel operator at Suncor Energy's Millennium oilsands mine north of Fort McMurray, Alta., was digging away at a large bank when he inadvertently stumbled upon Alberta's oldest dinosaur fossil and one of the most well-preserved dinosaur fossils ever found. "Right away, we knew it was going to be something good," says Don Henderson, curator of dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta. "But we had no idea how good it was going to be." After getting the fossil back to the museum, Don and his team set to work solving the 110-million-year-old mystery. The life and times of Borealopelta Six years after it was found, the mysterious dino was declared a new species to science and given a proper name: Borealopelta markmitchelli. "Borealopelta" means "shield of the North," and its species name is a nod to Mark Mitchell, the Royal Tyrrell Museum technician who spent 7,000 hours fighting for every millimetre while freeing the dinosaur from the rock it was found in. The approximately five-and-a-half-metre-long specimen was so perfectly preserved that researchers were able to stare into the face of a real dinosaur that lived during a time when North America was a very different place. Borealopelta was built like a tank and covered in thick armour, especially around its neck, indicating that it needed protection from predators. At its shoulders, a massive, 51-centimetre-long spike extended out…