Major dino find only scratches the surface

Paleontologists from the Dinosaur Journey Museum in western Colorado unearthed a massive find in Rabbit Valley Thursday afternoon.

Around 1:00 p.m., scientists extracted a six-foot long dinosaur scapula out of the Mygatt-Moore Quarry, located on BLM land in the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area.

Judging from the size of the scapula, or shoulder bone, it must have belonged to a very large dinosaur.

Paleontology and Collections Manager, ReBecca Hunt-Foster, says the bone comes from a long-necked, plant eating dinosaur, called the Apatosaurus.

But the scapula they found Thursday turned out to be a preview of a larger coming attraction.

"When the bone pit came out we noticed there was a little bit of bone that had fallen out of the jacket but luckily what was happening is we found this other bone underneath the bone that we were intending to pull out, and we did not know this was here," said Hunt-Foster.

"So we just have another new find. And there's more vertebrae under here and a femur going back that way."

Paleontologists say the shoulder bone they extracted Thursday is the longest limb bone they've found in the area in the last two or three years.

And, they say the surprise discovery they made will be the longest Apatosaurus bone ever discovered in the quarry.

KJCT spoke with Hunt-Foster about a week after the fossils were uncovered, and new ones were discovered. She said they were hoping to be able to uncover the larger fossil sometime this year, but it looks like they'll have to hold off until sometime in 2013.

The fossils in the quarry are on federally protected Bureau of Land Management property. A federal law protecting fossils was signed by President Obama in April of 2009.

Continue to follow KJCT News 8 as we track the progress of the Dinosaur Journey Museum's latest discoveries.