I saw the Bone Quarry at Dinosaur national park a couple of years ago, And it was very nearly a religious experience.
I was on a cross country trip and decided to see it on a whim, so no real research on what it was, I thought it was going to be a large fossil, and went "I like dinosaurs, A fossil will be fun" But when I went around that last corner, entered the site. I was not prepared, the sight quite literally took my breath away.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/DNM_Quar...
Then when you learn that what you are seeing is only a quarter of what was found there... I am a little conflicted, on the one hand it is great that so many museums get near complete skeletons, get to share this great thing with so many people. But there is a good amount of regret. as majestic as what was preserved imagine if it were kept whole.
Final thoughts: Bone Quarry is a great name for a metal band.
> "More than half of the known dinosaur species in the world are described from a single specimen. We have thousands of Pachyrhinosaurus here."
This was fascinating to realize. I had no idea that our general experience was so spotty, but this also shows what an absolute gold mine this is.
Come to think of it, our societies have a lot of mechanisms to ensure that human fossils will be close to non-existing. In my part of the world, bodies or even the smallest remains are retrieved. Even if it means dredging a lake. And when they dredge the lake they find a different body or clues to solve a decades-long disappearance mystery. What I’m getting at is that our bodies always end up in a wooden box or incinerated. Neither of which is conducive to fossilisation.
I wonder if there could be a way to opt for “likely natural fossilisation” in your testament.
Similar to the boneyard[0] which John Reeves discovered in Alaska.
