The Denver Museum of Nature and Science (DMNS) announced the discovery of a nearly 70-million-year-old dinosaur fossil beneath its parking lot, The Hill reported. According to the museum, the partial bone fossil was found 233 meters (763 feet) below the surface during geothermal test drilling in January.

“This is a scientifically and historically extremely exciting find for both the Museum and the broader Denver community,” said James Hagadorn, curator of geology at the DMNS. According to the museum, the fossil is the deepest and oldest dinosaur fossil ever found within the city limits of Denver.

“This fossil comes from an era just before the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs and offers a rare glimpse into the ecosystem that once existed directly beneath present-day Denver,” Hagadorn added.

The bone has been identified as a vertebra of an herbivorous dinosaur, found in Late Cretaceous rocks dated to approximately 67.5 million years ago, the museum noted.

Patrick O’Connor, director of Earth & Space Sciences at the DMNS and a member of the team that identified the bone, said this may be “the most unusual dinosaur discovery” he has ever been part of.

“Not only is it extremely rare to find any fossil during drilling projects, but this discovery provided an exceptional opportunity for the Museum’s Earth Sciences team to collaborate, which led to the publication of a scientific article,” O’Connor added. The article, titled “Denver’s Deepest Dinosaur,” was published in the scientific journal Rocky Mountain Geology in June. The research was led by DMNS postdoctoral scholar Dr. Holger Petermann.

“This fossil underscores the highly fossiliferous nature of the entire D1 Sequence (Denver Formation) and increases the diversity of dinosaurs known from the Denver metropolitan area,” reads an excerpt from the article’s abstract.

The fossil bone is currently on display at the DMNS in the “Discovering Teen Rex” exhibition. |BGNES