Construction crew uncovers rare triceratops fossil in Colorado

Aug. 31 (UPI) -- A construction crew in Colorado made an unexpected discovery as they dug up a rare triceratops skull.

City of Thornton officials said this week crews happened to uncover the fossil while breaking ground on a new fire and police substation. They shared the finding with Joe Sertich, curator of dinosaurs at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

"My heart was racing," Sertich told KDVR. "I realized it was a pretty important dinosaur find."

Sertich said the Colorado area was once a hotbed for dinosaurs, but the triceratops skull was one of only three or four found along the front-range area.

"Dinosaurs from the Denver area have been known for about 150 years, but most of Denver is covered by parking lots or houses, shopping malls, and so it's pretty unusual to get down to the original rock layers that Denver sits on," he told The Denver Channel. "And so whenever a construction site like this gets down to the right level, like it did here in Thornton, rocks that pre-date the extinction of dinosaurs, right before the dinosaurs go extinct, you have things like T-Rex and triceratops walking around the landscape, and so this construction site hit the right spot at the right time."

Most fossils found in the area tend to be 10,000 to 12,000 years old, but Sertich said the triceratops skull was much older.

"This dinosaur has been laying here for at least 66 million years," he said. "I'm over the moon right now about this dinosaur fossil."

Sertich said it was "really lucky" the crews recognized the fossils and said the museum hopes to put them on display in the near future.