Excavator Busts Open Rock, Had No Idea What He’s Done

It was a normal day at work for Sean Funk. He was an experienced miner with 12 years under his belt. He worked as a heavy machine operator, so he had seen plenty of lost treasure in all his years. More often than not, garbage was the thing that they found, but sometimes there would be something of value. Funk didn’t think anything could surprise him these days, but what he didn’t know was he was about to be proved wrong.

Funk was ready for another day of excavating in Millennium mine in Alberta, Canada. Funk was happy with his life; he had a job he truly loved. Nothing was better than working with your hands in nature. He really loved finding natural anomalies; some called it an obsession. He really wanted to find one, but over the years, he became more skeptical. But he had no idea today he was going to find what he wanted.

Funk sat in the seat of his excavator like he did every day. The huge crane would shovel giant rocks from the ground into a pile. It was usual for him; today was just another boring day, or so he thought. He was scooping a crevice into the Earth, so all you could see was mud and oil.

As he scooped more of the ground’s layers, he imagined that each layer was older than the last, imagining what could have walked on this soil. He remembered seeing something on the news about a miner finding an egg in the ground. He looked down at the hole he was digging and just saw sand. He smirked, knowing there was nothing. He kept digging until suddenly his crane hit something very hard underneath the old Earth. He heard a loud cracking sound and wondered what he could have hit—another rock.

He raised the crane of his digger and swiveled out of his seat, out of the cab. He looked at the rocks his crane had in its jaws. The rocks looked strange, so he transported them on his pickup truck to find out what they were. Then he went back to the crevice he was busy digging. He looked at the damp hole, his eyes widening as he saw something that made his stomach tie into a knot. He sprinted to his cab and called for officials, co-workers, site managers, everyone.

Funk’s backup he had called in was on the scene. They brought an even bigger crane, so they took help to dislodge the anomaly. They dug below the artifact and put boards underneath it so it could be held steadily. After they had secured it tightly, Funk looked at it nervously as they began lifting it. Funk felt like this was his find and thus didn’t want anything happening to it. Once the artifact had been lifted high in the air above the watery tomb it had stayed in, Funk felt his diaphragm relax. But he didn’t know that he wasn’t out of the water just yet.

As the crane slowly lowered the artifact down to touch solid ground, everyone heard a sickening crack that made them all wince. The artifact broke, showing Funk what he believed to have seen the first time he stumbled upon it. A team from the Royal Terrill Museum of Paleontology rushed to the scene. Funk watched as their eyes popped in shock and amazement as they realized what they were called for. Funk explained everything, and they spent hours carefully digging through the shattered bits of rock, piecing together something you could only see to believe.

What was it? Incredibly, Funk discovered a real-life fossilized dinosaur that had been petrified from its snout to its hips. This meant it was miraculously well-preserved since its death 112 million years ago. Not only did it have teeth and bones, but also its skin and remnants of its intestines—a phenomenon as rare as winning the lottery.

Scientists speculate that the unlucky dinosaur died and ended up being swept into the river by a big flood. It was kept afloat by gases in its body, which washed its belly up carcass far out to sea. After a week or so, the carcass burst, and it sank back first into the ocean floor. Minerals seeped into the skin and armor and supported its back, which immortalized its form as tons of rock piled on top of it.

Researchers from the museum and all over the world worked tirelessly for six years to test, preserve, and prepare this dinosaur’s remains while piecing together his unbelievable story. Scientists concluded that this dinosaur was a four-legged herbivore covered in armor-plated skin and spikes with a long tail.

It was a brand new discovery of a species called a notosaur. In its petrified state, the notosaur weighed about 2,500 pounds, which gives scientists a reasonable idea of how much it weighed when it was alive. They estimate that the notosaur weighed in at around 3,000 pounds. This means that the notosaur would have been a fairly solitary creature when it roamed the land 100 million years ago.

The miracle of the notosaur’s perfectly preserved remains still baffles scientists, especially after its rough and long journey to its final resting place. Exactly how this preservation occurred was still a mystery to experts. All they were able to determine was that it had to have happened quickly because the notosaur had lain undisturbed for millions of years after it had been covered by oil.

Due to the notosaur’s pristine conditions, scientists were able to use modern x-ray scans to see what was inside the dinosaur’s tough exoskeleton. They were able to see its bone structure and even inside the inner chambers of the beast’s stomach. That’s just how well preserved this find was. Nobody could believe it, least of all the man who found it.