7-year

A seven-year-old Calgary girl has made a rare discovery recently while playing on some rocks at a local playground.

After spending some time playing on the playground equipment, Alyssa, (whose last name is being withheld for privacy reasons at the request of the family) decided to check out some of the large boulders stacked around the area.

While looking for bugs, Alyssa, who has a fascination with dinosaurs, noticed a dark shape, about five centimetres in size, embedded in the top of one of the boulders and immediately recognized it as a fossil.

Her parents contacted the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta., and archeologists there confirmed she had discovered a 250-400-million-year-old fossilized sea star.

Dr. Don Henderson, the curator of dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, said sea stars require very specific conditions to fossilize, so specimens such as the one found in Calgary are extremely rare and limited to only a handful of sites worldwide.

A crew from the museum and the city used a diamond-edged saw to remove the fossil from the rock and it was taken to the museum, where it will be cleaned and catalogued. The find may eventually be put on display.

The boulder the fossil was found in was placed in the playground during construction in 2005, so the museum is now trying to determine where it originally came from.

In Alberta, fossils are protected under the Historical Resources Act.

Laureen Bryant, an archaeologist with the City of Calgary, says it’s important for anyone who finds a fossil to report it to the Royal Tyrrell Museum, including the location and any photographs they may have taken, and to leave it undisturbed to avoid damage.

More information about fossils in Alberta and what to do if you find one is available on the Royal Tyrrell Museum website.