Miners Unearth Valuable 'Artifact' That Solves A 100 Million-Year-Old Mystery

miners unearth valuable artifact that solves a 100 million year old mystery [Music] miners in canada were left flabbergasted when a typical workday resulted in an accidental discovery of epic proportions the underground find didn't seem to make much sense so the miners sought the help of trained scientists now the truth that eventually came out is rewriting history or pre-history rather as we know it fateful afternoon the day started just like any other one afternoon on march 21 2011 a man named sean funk was about to have his whole world rocked he didn't know it that morning but he was about to make a huge discovery at work of course he knew something was down there millennium mine it's just that sean didn't expect his work site to contain anything other than petroleum deposits the millennium mine is a large pit of oil sands about 17 miles north of fort mcmurray in alberta canada and it's run by a company called suncor they knew the mine provided a tall order heavy equipment as an official heavy equipment operator that desean was tasked with digging a large hole through the earth little did he know he was about to discover another kind of heavy equipment excavator sean hit the ground running and the job was taking hours it hit ancient sand and marine remains on the way down but most of it was so different from the original form that it wasn't worthwhile but that would soon change harder than rock around four hours into the job sean hit something in the earth and it hit back not literally but it was much harder than everything else around including rock lumpy colors something unusual was in sean's path on top of being harder than rock when frank prodded further strangely shaped lumps came out of the area sean called for help within minutes it didn't take long for sean's boss mike gratton to come down to the scene he looked at the lumps carefully they were brown and came in strips could this have been ribs maybe but they were just so huge strange pattern as if that wasn't mysterious enough when mike and sean turned the bits over they revealed a strange pattern of brown rose each of them was outlined by a shiny gray stone checked out it almost looked like skin but even fossilization never preserved the outer layer of the body not yet at least we gotta get this checked out said mike it was definitely nothing we had ever seen before and so began the investigation that would change the history of nature as we know it one way or another one way or another this thing was going to be figured out but these guys knew nothing about ancient remains or fossils so they decided to seek out the help of dino professionals royal tyrell museum after reaching a breaking point mike and sean contacted the royal tyrell museum of paleontology in alberta the rest was history and the government was about to step in right away officials were intrigued property realizing the gravity of the situation the royal tyrell museum arranged for the albertan government to take control of the situation they seized the specimen and took it to the labs senior technicians the royal tyrell museum arranged for scientists donald henderson and senior technician darin tanka to bring the specimen back to their headquarters the two were about to put their heads together and figure out what the heck this thing was photographic evidence based on high detailed photographs of the specimen the scientists concluded that the specimen was a complete set of animal remains that was shocking especially after learning more about the animal plesiosaur the remains belonged to plesiosaur which is a kind of marine reptile that ruled the oceans with a unique four-flippered body their findings sounded straightforward enough so why the frenzy well something else just wasn't adding up never before seen the remains were impressive in part because they were largely intact most times fossils only come in fragments but it also had to do with the fact that no land animals had ever been discovered in the oil sands before the scientists admitted their initial theory might have been correct mistaken identity after a closer look scientists were shocked to find out that this wasn't a marine reptile at all it was a dinosaur specifically an ankylosaurus called a boreo pelta it was a fierce armored beast that swung its spiked tail like a club but how did it get here washed away it turns out that this dinosaur used to live on land but at some point was washed out to the ocean after it died from there the fossilization process began and it just so happened to be in the ocean at the time 14 days later now that this dinosaur was correctly identified its team was hell-bent on securing as many parts of the body as they could find it took them 14 days and by the end it was almost there secret vegetarian today this big fella lives at the royal tyrell museum in alberta thousands of curious minds visit every year and they're often shocked to learn it was reportedly a vegetarian sean meanwhile went back to work where he would be forever famous as the dinosaur hunter in fact he inspired other ordinary people to chase after lost fossils aspiring paleontologist as an aspiring paleontologist nathan wants nothing more than to be knee-deep in the dirt at horseshoe cannon where ancient bones are believed to be hidden beneath the surface it takes a lot of patience if you want to find something special something rare luckily for nathan he has patience to spare still when he arrived at horseshoe cannon with his dad one special day he thought the most he would find would be a few rocks and a lizard or two the canada natives had no idea he was about to stumble upon something much more rare all about dinosaurs like a lot of kids nathan loves learning about some of the oldest known creatures to have walked the earth dinosaurs prehistoric times were crawling with all kinds of creatures we'd find monstrous today but all that remains of this time period are the bones bone fragments believe it or not nathan had encountered a few chunks of prehistoric life in the past he and dion had found multiple bone fragments at horseshoe cannon but never anything substantial enough to identify still if fragments exist an intact bone could be anywhere where to start searching for dinosaur bones is like participating in a weird dusty scavenger hunt you follow the fragments unsure if you're being led to or away from your ultimate goal ancient history was waiting beneath nathan's feet but he just didn't know where exactly to start digging horseshoe cannon but there was something different about that particular day when nathan and dion decided to hike through a conservation site in horseshoe cannon they were near the place that they'd found the bone fragments which gave the aspiring paleontologist an idea up the hill nathan realized that the bone fragments which they had found at the bottom of the hill may have been washed down from farther up if that fact was true then there would be more fragments at the top of the hill and perhaps even something intact you