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112-533: The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology ( RTMP ; often referred to as the Royal Tyrrell Museum ) is a palaeontology museum and research facility in Drumheller , Alberta , Canada. The museum was named in honour of Joseph Burr Tyrrell , and is situated within a 12,500-square-metre-building (135,000 sq ft) designed by BCW Architects at Midland Provincial Park . Efforts to establish

224-471: A jigsaw puzzle . Rocks normally form relatively horizontal layers, with each layer younger than the one underneath it. If a fossil is found between two layers whose ages are known, the fossil's age must lie between the two known ages. Because rock sequences are not continuous, but may be broken up by faults or periods of erosion , it is very difficult to match up rock beds that are not directly next to one another. However, fossils of species that survived for

336-594: A bonebed in Alberta, as an homage to Joseph Tyrrell, who first discovered the dinosaur. Several exhibits are also organized by locale, or focused on a specific fossil-bearing deposit , such as the Burgess Shale exhibit. The Grounds for Discovery exhibit displays specimens found from commercial and industrial digs. The world's most well-preserved thyreophora is situated within the Grounds for Discovery exhibit,

448-552: A collision that formed the Moon about 40 million years later, may have cooled quickly enough to have oceans and an atmosphere about 4,440  million years ago . There is evidence on the Moon of a Late Heavy Bombardment by asteroids from 4,000 to 3,800 million years ago . If, as seems likely, such a bombardment struck Earth at the same time, the first atmosphere and oceans may have been stripped away. Paleontology traces

560-602: A common ancestor. Ideally the "family tree" has only two branches leading from each node ("junction"), but sometimes there is too little information to achieve this, and paleontologists have to make do with junctions that have several branches. The cladistic technique is sometimes fallible, as some features, such as wings or camera eyes , evolved more than once, convergently  – this must be taken into account in analyses. Evolutionary developmental biology , commonly abbreviated to "Evo Devo", also helps paleontologists to produce "family trees", and understand fossils. For example,

672-456: A constant rate. These " molecular clocks ", however, are fallible, and provide only a very approximate timing: for example, they are not sufficiently precise and reliable for estimating when the groups that feature in the Cambrian explosion first evolved, and estimates produced by different techniques may vary by a factor of two. Earth formed about 4,570  million years ago and, after

784-403: A data source that is not limited to animals with easily fossilised hard parts, and they reflect organisms' behaviours. Also many traces date from significantly earlier than the body fossils of animals that are thought to have been capable of making them. Whilst exact assignment of trace fossils to their makers is generally impossible, traces may for example provide the earliest physical evidence of

896-573: A fortunate accident during other research. For example, the 1980 discovery by Luis and Walter Alvarez of iridium , a mainly extraterrestrial metal, in the Cretaceous – Paleogene boundary layer made asteroid impact the most favored explanation for the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event – although debate continues about the contribution of volcanism. A complementary approach to developing scientific knowledge, experimental science ,

1008-591: A fossil of a Borealopelta found by oil sand workers at the Athabasca oil sands . Other exhibits that display specimens from the museum's fossil collection includes the Dinosaur Hall, Fossils in Focus, and Triassic Giants. Dinosaur Hall houses over thirty mounted dinosaur skeletons including specimens of an Albertosaurus , Camarasaurus , Triceratops , and a Tyrannosaurus , including Black Beauty ,

1120-821: A minor group until the first jawed fish appeared in the Late Ordovician . The spread of animals and plants from water to land required organisms to solve several problems, including protection against drying out and supporting themselves against gravity . The earliest evidence of land plants and land invertebrates date back to about 476  million years ago and 490  million years ago respectively. Those invertebrates, as indicated by their trace and body fossils, were shown to be arthropods known as euthycarcinoids . The lineage that produced land vertebrates evolved later but very rapidly between 370  million years ago and 360  million years ago ; recent discoveries have overturned earlier ideas about

1232-653: A northward course towards Asia. In the Southern Hemisphere, Australia and Antarctica seem to have remained connected and began to drift away from Africa and South America. Europe was an island chain. Populating some of these islands were endemic dwarf dinosaur species. In the Late Cretaceous, the hadrosaurs , ankylosaurs , and ceratopsians experienced success in Asiamerica (Western North America and eastern Asia). Tyrannosaurs dominated

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1344-401: A palaeontological research group, as well as a rotating roster of postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. Palaeontological technicians of the museum assist, or oversee fieldwork operations; as well as prepare fossils for exhibits, or research. In 2015, the museum's group of palaeontological technicians had collectively over 150 years of cumulative experience. Although formally not employed for

1456-734: A palaeontology museum were announced by the provincial government in 1981, with the palaeontology program of the Provincial Museum of Alberta spun-off to help facilitate the creation of a palaeontology museum. After four years of preparation, the Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology was opened in September 1985. The museum was later renamed the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in June 1990, following its bestowal of

1568-555: A rapid increase in knowledge about the history of life on Earth and to progress in the definition of the geologic time scale , largely based on fossil evidence. Although she was rarely recognised by the scientific community, Mary Anning was a significant contributor to the field of palaeontology during this period; she uncovered multiple novel Mesozoic reptile fossils and deducted that what were then known as bezoar stones are in fact fossilised faeces . In 1822 Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville , editor of Journal de Physique , coined

1680-543: A relatively short time can be used to link up isolated rocks: this technique is called biostratigraphy . For instance, the conodont Eoplacognathus pseudoplanus has a short range in the Middle Ordovician period. If rocks of unknown age are found to have traces of E. pseudoplanus , they must have a mid-Ordovician age. Such index fossils must be distinctive, be globally distributed and have a short time range to be useful. However, misleading results are produced if

1792-608: A steady increase in brain size after about 3  million years ago . There is a long-running debate about whether modern humans are descendants of a single small population in Africa , which then migrated all over the world less than 200,000 years ago and replaced previous hominine species, or arose worldwide at the same time as a result of interbreeding . Life on earth has suffered occasional mass extinctions at least since 542  million years ago . Despite their disastrous effects, mass extinctions have sometimes accelerated

1904-536: A very different dinosaurian fauna, with most predators being abelisaurids and carcharodontosaurids ; and titanosaurs being among the dominant herbivores. Spinosaurids were also present during this time. Birds became increasingly common, diversifying in a variety of enantiornithe and ornithurine forms. Early Neornithes such as Vegavis co-existed with forms as bizarre as Yungavolucris and Avisaurus . Though mostly small, marine Hesperornithes became relatively large and flightless, adapted to life in

2016-595: Is composed only of eukaryotic cells, and the earliest evidence for it is the Francevillian Group Fossils from 2,100  million years ago , although specialisation of cells for different functions first appears between 1,430  million years ago (a possible fungus) and 1,200  million years ago (a probable red alga ). Sexual reproduction may be a prerequisite for specialisation of cells, as an asexual multicellular organism might be at risk of being taken over by rogue cells that retain

2128-482: Is hard to decide at what level to place a new higher-level grouping, e.g. genus or family or order ; this is important since the Linnaean rules for naming groups are tied to their levels, and hence if a group is moved to a different level it must be renamed. Paleontologists generally use approaches based on cladistics , a technique for working out the evolutionary "family tree" of a set of organisms. It works by

2240-479: Is it particularly evident that a true systematic decline was ever in place, especially with the discovery of smaller pterosaur species. Several old mammal groups began to disappear, with the last eutriconodonts occurring in the Campanian of North America . In the northern hemisphere, cimolodont , multituberculates , metatherians and eutherians were the dominant mammals, with the former two groups being

2352-443: Is often said to work by conducting experiments to disprove hypotheses about the workings and causes of natural phenomena. This approach cannot prove a hypothesis, since some later experiment may disprove it, but the accumulation of failures to disprove is often compelling evidence in favor. However, when confronted with totally unexpected phenomena, such as the first evidence for invisible radiation , experimental scientists often use

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2464-594: Is one that contained an extinct "crocodile-like" marine reptile, which eventually came to be known as the mosasaurid Mosasaurus of the Cretaceous period. The first half of the 19th century saw geological and paleontological activity become increasingly well organised with the growth of geologic societies and museums and an increasing number of professional geologists and fossil specialists. Interest increased for reasons that were not purely scientific, as geology and paleontology helped industrialists to find and exploit natural resources such as coal. This contributed to

2576-401: Is our only means of giving rocks greater than about 50 million years old an absolute age, and can be accurate to within 0.5% or better. Although radiometric dating requires very careful laboratory work, its basic principle is simple: the rates at which various radioactive elements decay are known, and so the ratio of the radioactive element to the element into which it decays shows how long ago

2688-456: Is the scientific study of life that existed prior to the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossils to classify organisms and study their interactions with each other and their environments (their paleoecology ). Paleontological observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in

2800-503: Is thought to have been propelled by coevolution with pollinating insects. Social insects appeared around the same time and, although they account for only small parts of the insect "family tree", now form over 50% of the total mass of all insects. Humans evolved from a lineage of upright-walking apes whose earliest fossils date from over 6  million years ago . Although early members of this lineage had chimp -sized brains, about 25% as big as modern humans', there are signs of

2912-582: The Middle Ages the Persian naturalist Ibn Sina , known as Avicenna in Europe, discussed fossils and proposed a theory of petrifying fluids on which Albert of Saxony elaborated in the 14th century. The Chinese naturalist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) proposed a theory of climate change based on the presence of petrified bamboo in regions that in his time were too dry for bamboo. In early modern Europe ,

3024-538: The Neogene - Quaternary . In deeper-level deposits in western Europe are early-aged mammals such as the palaeothere perissodactyl Palaeotherium and the anoplotheriid artiodactyl Anoplotherium , both of which were described earliest after the former two genera, which today are known to date to the Paleogene period. Cuvier figured out that even older than the two levels of deposits with extinct large mammals

3136-598: The Palaeocene of Alberta, the Palaeozoic of the Canadian Arctic , and in the Palaeozoic, Triassic , and Early Cretaceous of British Columbia. Besides fieldwork, the museum has also acquired items for its collection through a variety of other means, including donations, exchanges, purchases, salvage operations of industrial excavations, and from palaeontologists archiving their works at the museum. Most of

3248-637: The Permian–Triassic extinction event . Amphibians Extinct Synapsids Mammals Extinct reptiles Lizards and snakes Extinct Archosaurs Crocodilians Extinct Dinosaurs Birds Naming groups of organisms in a way that is clear and widely agreed is important, as some disputes in paleontology have been based just on misunderstandings over names. Linnaean taxonomy is commonly used for classifying living organisms, but runs into difficulties when dealing with newly discovered organisms that are significantly different from known ones. For example: it

3360-516: The Permian–Triassic extinction event . A relatively recent discipline, molecular phylogenetics , compares the DNA and RNA of modern organisms to re-construct the "family trees" of their evolutionary ancestors. It has also been used to estimate the dates of important evolutionary developments, although this approach is controversial because of doubts about the reliability of the " molecular clock ". Techniques from engineering have been used to analyse how

3472-454: The embryological development of some modern brachiopods suggests that brachiopods may be descendants of the halkieriids , which became extinct in the Cambrian period. Paleontology seeks to map out how living things have changed through time. A substantial hurdle to this aim is the difficulty of working out how old fossils are. Beds that preserve fossils typically lack the radioactive elements needed for radiometric dating . This technique

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3584-526: The " jigsaw puzzles " of biostratigraphy (arrangement of rock layers from youngest to oldest). Classifying ancient organisms is also difficult, as many do not fit well into the Linnaean taxonomy classifying living organisms, and paleontologists more often use cladistics to draw up evolutionary "family trees". The final quarter of the 20th century saw the development of molecular phylogenetics , which investigates how closely organisms are related by measuring

3696-463: The 18th century as a result of Georges Cuvier 's work on comparative anatomy , and developed rapidly in the 19th century. The term has been used since 1822 formed from Greek παλαιός ( 'palaios' , "old, ancient"), ὄν ( 'on' , ( gen. 'ontos' ), "being, creature"), and λόγος ( 'logos' , "speech, thought, study"). Paleontology lies on the border between biology and geology , but it differs from archaeology in that it excludes

3808-508: The ATCO Tyrrell Learning Centre annex. Plans to expand the museum's building again were underway as early as 2013, although the museum did not announce its plans to expand the museum building until 2016. The expansion plan saw the construction of a learning lounge annex, that increased the building's size by an additional 1,300 square metres (14,000 sq ft). The learning lounge annex was created in response to

3920-803: The Cretaceous Period derived from the German name Kreidezeit , and T is the abbreviation for the Tertiary Period (a historical term for the period of time now covered by the Paleogene and Neogene periods). The event marks the end of the Mesozoic Era and the beginning of the Cenozoic Era. "Tertiary" being no longer recognized as a formal time or rock unit by the International Commission on Stratigraphy ,

4032-584: The Drumheller area, where members of the public participate in bonebed excavation. The museum has a suite of distance learning programs, providing educational programming to students. The museum operates a casting and molding program where it creates replicas of specimens from its own collections, providing them for use to other museums. The museum research program has a broad mandate to document and analyze geological and palaeontological history, with reference to Alberta. The museum's research program includes

4144-555: The Early Cambrian , along with several "weird wonders" that bear little obvious resemblance to any modern animals. There is a long-running debate about whether this Cambrian explosion was truly a very rapid period of evolutionary experimentation; alternative views are that modern-looking animals began evolving earlier but fossils of their precursors have not yet been found, or that the "weird wonders" are evolutionary "aunts" and "cousins" of modern groups. Vertebrates remained

4256-463: The Earth's organic and inorganic past". William Whewell (1794–1866) classified paleontology as one of the historical sciences, along with archaeology , geology, astronomy , cosmology , philology and history itself: paleontology aims to describe phenomena of the past and to reconstruct their causes. Hence it has three main elements: description of past phenomena; developing a general theory about

4368-539: The Geological Survey of Canada, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology , other museums in North America, and universities based in Alberta. Many of the museum's research projects are based in Alberta, although it has conducted research projects out of the province. As of 2015, the museum has participated in 10 collaborative, and externally-funded research projects outside of Alberta,

4480-850: The K-T event is now called the Cretaceous—Paleogene (or K-Pg) extinction event by many researchers. Non- avian dinosaur fossils are found only below the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary and became extinct immediately before or during the event. A very small number of dinosaur fossils have been found above the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, but they have been explained as reworked fossils , that is, fossils that have been eroded from their original locations then preserved in later sedimentary layers. Mosasaurs , plesiosaurs , pterosaurs and many species of plants and invertebrates also became extinct. Mammalian and bird clades passed through

4592-412: The ability to reproduce. The earliest known animals are cnidarians from about 580  million years ago , but these are so modern-looking that they must be descendants of earlier animals. Early fossils of animals are rare because they had not developed mineralised , easily fossilized hard parts until about 548  million years ago . The earliest modern-looking bilaterian animals appear in

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4704-515: The appearance of moderately complex animals (comparable to earthworms ). Geochemical observations may help to deduce the global level of biological activity at a certain period, or the affinity of certain fossils. For example, geochemical features of rocks may reveal when life first arose on Earth, and may provide evidence of the presence of eukaryotic cells, the type from which all multicellular organisms are built. Analyses of carbon isotope ratios may help to explain major transitions such as

4816-463: The approximate total area of the museum building to 12,500 square metres (135,000 sq ft). The original building was designed by the Calgary -based BCW Architects, with Doug Craig as the lead architect. Although the design was largely left to Craig, he was given a list of 27 architectural requirements from the museum's director. Several of these requirements included the necessity to harmonize

4928-625: The atmosphere increased their effectiveness as nurseries of evolution. While eukaryotes , cells with complex internal structures, may have been present earlier, their evolution speeded up when they acquired the ability to transform oxygen from a poison to a powerful source of metabolic energy. This innovation may have come from primitive eukaryotes capturing oxygen-powered bacteria as endosymbionts and transforming them into organelles called mitochondria . The earliest evidence of complex eukaryotes with organelles (such as mitochondria) dates from 1,850  million years ago . Multicellular life

5040-415: The bodies of ancient organisms might have worked, for example the running speed and bite strength of Tyrannosaurus , or the flight mechanics of Microraptor . It is relatively commonplace to study the internal details of fossils using X-ray microtomography . Paleontology, biology, archaeology, and paleoneurobiology combine to study endocranial casts (endocasts) of species related to humans to clarify

5152-524: The boundary with few extinctions, and evolutionary radiation from those Maastrichtian clades occurred well past the boundary. Rates of extinction and radiation varied across different clades of organisms. Many scientists hypothesize that the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinctions were caused by catastrophic events such as the massive asteroid impact that caused the Chicxulub crater , in combination with increased volcanic activity , such as that recorded in

5264-486: The building with the surrounding badlands , make the entrance easy to locate by routing the driveway to pass the front of the building, and providing adequate space for visitors' eyes to adjust from the light outside and inside the building. The main structure includes several galleries with interactive displays, a cafeteria, gift shop, and a theatre. The museum's main lobby features a mural made of ten 1.2-by-2.4-metre (4 by 8 ft) ceramic panels; titled The Story of Life ,

5376-401: The causes of various types of change; and applying those theories to specific facts. When trying to explain the past, paleontologists and other historical scientists often construct a set of one or more hypotheses about the causes and then look for a " smoking gun ", a piece of evidence that strongly accords with one hypothesis over any others. Sometimes researchers discover a "smoking gun" by

5488-763: The characteristics and evolution of humans as a species. When dealing with evidence about humans, archaeologists and paleontologists may work together – for example paleontologists might identify animal or plant fossils around an archaeological site , to discover the people who lived there, and what they ate; or they might analyze the climate at the time of habitation. In addition, paleontology often borrows techniques from other sciences, including biology, osteology , ecology, chemistry , physics and mathematics. For example, geochemical signatures from rocks may help to discover when life first arose on Earth, and analyses of carbon isotope ratios may help to identify climate changes and even to explain major transitions such as

5600-520: The chronological order in which rocks were formed, is useful to both paleontologists and geologists. Biogeography studies the spatial distribution of organisms, and is also linked to geology, which explains how Earth's geography has changed over time. Although paleontology became established around 1800, earlier thinkers had noticed aspects of the fossil record. The ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes (570–480 BCE) concluded from fossil sea shells that some areas of land were once under water. During

5712-467: The collection are placed on display in the museum's exhibits. Approximately half of these items are fossils dating back to the Cretaceous period. The majority of these fossils originate from Alberta, with approximately 85 per cent of the fossils from the province being collected from the museum's fieldwork. In addition to the Cretaceous fossils of Alberta, the museum also holds a number of fossils from

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5824-445: The date when lineages first appeared. For instance, if fossils of B or C date to X million years ago and the calculated "family tree" says A was an ancestor of B and C, then A must have evolved more than X million years ago. It is also possible to estimate how long ago two living clades diverged – i.e. approximately how long ago their last common ancestor must have lived – by assuming that DNA mutations accumulate at

5936-594: The development of mammalian traits such as endothermy and hair. After the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66  million years ago killed off all the dinosaurs except the birds, mammals increased rapidly in size and diversity, and some took to the air and the sea. Fossil evidence indicates that flowering plants appeared and rapidly diversified in the Early Cretaceous between 130  million years ago and 90  million years ago . Their rapid rise to dominance of terrestrial ecosystems

6048-561: The development of the body plans of most animal phyla . The discovery of fossils of the Ediacaran biota and developments in paleobiology extended knowledge about the history of life back far before the Cambrian. Increasing awareness of Gregor Mendel 's pioneering work in genetics led first to the development of population genetics and then in the mid-20th century to the modern evolutionary synthesis , which explains evolution as

6160-482: The different levels of deposits represented different time periods in the early 19th century. The surface-level deposits in the Americas contained later mammals like the megatheriid ground sloth Megatherium and the mammutid proboscidean Mammut (later known informally as a "mastodon"), which were some of the earliest-named fossil mammal genera with official taxonomic authorities. They today are known to date to

6272-409: The end of the 20th century have been particularly important as they have provided new information about the earliest evolution of animals, early fish, dinosaurs and the evolution of birds. The last few decades of the 20th century saw a renewed interest in mass extinctions and their role in the evolution of life on Earth. There was also a renewed interest in the Cambrian explosion that apparently saw

6384-400: The evolution of life on earth. When dominance of an ecological niche passes from one group of organisms to another, this is rarely because the new dominant group outcompetes the old, but usually because an extinction event allows a new group, which may possess an advantageous trait, to outlive the old and move into its niche. Late Cretaceous During the Late Cretaceous, the climate

6496-410: The evolution of the human brain. Paleontology even contributes to astrobiology , the investigation of possible life on other planets , by developing models of how life may have arisen and by providing techniques for detecting evidence of life. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised subdivisions. Vertebrate paleontology concentrates on fossils from the earliest fish to

6608-466: The evolutionary history of life back to over 3,000  million years ago , possibly as far as 3,800  million years ago . The oldest clear evidence of life on Earth dates to 3,000  million years ago , although there have been reports, often disputed, of fossil bacteria from 3,400  million years ago and of geochemical evidence for the presence of life 3,800  million years ago . Some scientists have proposed that life on Earth

6720-555: The exceptional events that cause quick burial make it difficult to study the normal environments of the animals. The sparseness of the fossil record means that organisms are expected to exist long before and after they are found in the fossil record – this is known as the Signor–Lipps effect . Trace fossils consist mainly of tracks and burrows, but also include coprolites (fossil feces ) and marks left by feeding. Trace fossils are particularly significant because they represent

6832-541: The exhibition of specimens and dioramas, the museum also has two exhibits related on palaeontology, Foundations , and Preparation Lab ; the latter exhibit allowing visitors to watch technicians as they prepare fossils for exhibits or research. Other exhibits in the museum includes the Cretaceous Garden, which is designed to mimic the Albertan environment during the Cretaceous era by planting living relatives of

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6944-539: The federal government. The learning lounge annex was formally opened to the public on 28 June 2019. The museum is located on North Dinosaur Trail at Midland Provincial Park, in Drumheller, Alberta. The area which the museum occupies is situated in the middle of the fossil-bearing strata of the Late Cretaceous Horseshoe Canyon Formation . The Badlands Interpretive Trail is a 1.4-kilometre (0.87 mi) hiking trail northeast to

7056-445: The feedback received from the museum, which requested more hands-on exhibits and activities at the museum. The expansion for the museum was funded by the provincial and federal governments, costing approximately C$ 9.3 million. The provincial government provided C$ 5.7 million, while the remaining C$ 3.5 million was provided by the federal government. The expansion marks the first time the museum's received cultural infrastructure funding from

7168-486: The first being the Sino-Canadian Dinosaur Project in 1985. As of 2015, these collaborative, out-of-province research projects has resulted in over 75 research publications. Palaeontology Paleontology ( / ˌ p eɪ l i ɒ n ˈ t ɒ l ə dʒ i , ˌ p æ l i -, - ən -/ PAY -lee-on- TOL -ə-jee, PAL -ee-, -⁠ən- ), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology ,

7280-452: The focus of paleontology shifted to understanding evolutionary paths, including human evolution , and evolutionary theory. The last half of the 19th century saw a tremendous expansion in paleontological activity, especially in North America. The trend continued in the 20th century with additional regions of the Earth being opened to systematic fossil collection. Fossils found in China near

7392-449: The following: At the end of the 18th century Georges Cuvier 's work established comparative anatomy as a scientific discipline and, by proving that some fossil animals resembled no living ones, demonstrated that animals could become extinct , leading to the emergence of paleontology. The expanding knowledge of the fossil record also played an increasing role in the development of geology, particularly stratigraphy . Cuvier proved that

7504-580: The fossil record: different environments are more favorable to the preservation of different types of organism or parts of organisms. Further, only the parts of organisms that were already mineralised are usually preserved, such as the shells of molluscs. Since most animal species are soft-bodied, they decay before they can become fossilised. As a result, although there are 30-plus phyla of living animals, two-thirds have never been found as fossils. Occasionally, unusual environments may preserve soft tissues. These lagerstätten allow paleontologists to examine

7616-432: The fourteenth-most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus in the world. Fossils in Focus is an exhibit that typically displays specimens of interest for the museum's research program. Triassic Giants is an exhibit dedicated to Elizabeth Nicholls, the museum's former curator of marine reptiles, and houses a specimen of a Shonisaurus , the world's largest marine reptile. Along with exhibits that are primarily concerned with

7728-687: The history and driving forces behind their evolution. Land plants were so successful that their detritus caused an ecological crisis in the Late Devonian , until the evolution of fungi that could digest dead wood. During the Permian period, synapsids , including the ancestors of mammals , may have dominated land environments, but this ended with the Permian–Triassic extinction event 251  million years ago , which came very close to wiping out all complex life. The extinctions were apparently fairly sudden, at least among vertebrates. During

7840-533: The history of Earth's climate and the mechanisms that have changed it  – which have sometimes included evolutionary developments, for example the rapid expansion of land plants in the Devonian period removed more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, reducing the greenhouse effect and thus helping to cause an ice age in the Carboniferous period. Biostratigraphy , the use of fossils to work out

7952-542: The immediate ancestors of modern mammals . Invertebrate paleontology deals with fossils such as molluscs , arthropods , annelid worms and echinoderms . Paleobotany studies fossil plants , algae , and fungi. Palynology , the study of pollen and spores produced by land plants and protists , straddles paleontology and botany , as it deals with both living and fossil organisms. Micropaleontology deals with microscopic fossil organisms of all kinds. Instead of focusing on individual organisms, paleoecology examines

8064-434: The index fossils turn out to have longer fossil ranges than first thought. Stratigraphy and biostratigraphy can in general provide only relative dating ( A was before B ), which is often sufficient for studying evolution. However, this is difficult for some time periods, because of the problems involved in matching up rocks of the same age across different continents . Family-tree relationships may also help to narrow down

8176-538: The interactions between different ancient organisms, such as their food chains , and the two-way interactions with their environments.   For example, the development of oxygenic photosynthesis by bacteria caused the oxygenation of the atmosphere and hugely increased the productivity and diversity of ecosystems . Together, these led to the evolution of complex eukaryotic cells, from which all multicellular organisms are built. Paleoclimatology , although sometimes treated as part of paleoecology, focuses more on

8288-463: The internal anatomy of animals that in other sediments are represented only by shells, spines, claws, etc. – if they are preserved at all. However, even lagerstätten present an incomplete picture of life at the time. The majority of organisms living at the time are probably not represented because lagerstätten are restricted to a narrow range of environments, e.g. where soft-bodied organisms can be preserved very quickly by events such as mudslides; and

8400-456: The investigation of evolutionary "family trees" by techniques derived from biochemistry , began to make an impact, particularly when it was proposed that the human lineage had diverged from apes much more recently than was generally thought at the time. Although this early study compared proteins from apes and humans, most molecular phylogenetics research is now based on comparisons of RNA and DNA . Fossils of organisms' bodies are usually

8512-468: The items in the exhibit. Several artistic works by Vladimir Krb are also exhibited in the museum's exhibits. A number of these exhibits are organized by geologic eras , displaying specimens and dioramas from those periods. These exhibits includes Cenozoic Gallery, Cretaceous Alberta, Cretaceous Garden, Palaeozoic Era, and Terrestrial Palaeozoic. The Cretaceous Alberta exhibit features a diorama of an Albertosaurus pack inspired by 22 specimens found in

8624-601: The large predator niche in North America. They were also present in Asia, although were usually smaller and more primitive than the North American varieties. Pachycephalosaurs were also present in both North America and Asia. Dromaeosaurids shared the same geographical distribution, and are well documented in both Mongolia and Western North America. Additionally therizinosaurs (known previously as segnosaurs) appear to have been in North America and Asia. Gondwana held

8736-518: The largest collection of fossils in Canada. The museum displays approximately 800 fossils from its collection in its museum exhibits. In addition to exhibits, the museum's fossil collection are also used by the museum's research program, which carries a mandate to document and analyze geological and palaeontological history. During the late 1970s, the government of Alberta began to consider building within, or adjacent to Dinosaur Provincial Park . In 1981,

8848-409: The logic that, if groups B and C have more similarities to each other than either has to group A, then B and C are more closely related to each other than either is to A. Characters that are compared may be anatomical , such as the presence of a notochord , or molecular , by comparing sequences of DNA or proteins . The result of a successful analysis is a hierarchy of clades – groups that share

8960-636: The most common mammals in North America. In the southern hemisphere there was instead a more complex fauna of dryolestoids , gondwanatheres and other multituberculates and basal eutherians ; monotremes were presumably present, as was the last of the haramiyidans , Avashishta . Mammals, though generally small, ranged into a variety of ecological niches, from carnivores ( Deltatheroida ), to mollusc-eater ( Stagodontidae ), to herbivores (multituberculates, Schowalteria , Zhelestidae and Mesungulatidae ) to highly atypical cursorial forms ( Zalambdalestidae , Brandoniidae ). True placentals evolved only at

9072-409: The most informative type of evidence. The most common types are wood, bones, and shells. Fossilisation is a rare event, and most fossils are destroyed by erosion or metamorphism before they can be observed. Hence the fossil record is very incomplete, increasingly so further back in time. Despite this, it is often adequate to illustrate the broader patterns of life's history. There are also biases in

9184-441: The mural was crafted by Lorraine Malach . The museum contracted BCW Architects again to help design the ATCO Tyrrell Learning Centre, a 1,485-square-metre-annex (15,980 sq ft) to the main museum. The ATCO Tyrrell Learning Centre was completed in 2003 and included several classrooms with distance learning technology to allows researchers to remotely connect with field sites, and a laboratory. The ATCO Tyrrell Learning Centre

9296-655: The museum building, and is used extensively by the museum public and school programs. The building was designed to function as a museum, and as a laboratory/research facility. The original structure was completed in 1985, and was expanded twice in the 21st century. The original structure and its first expansion has a total area of 11,200 square metres (121,000 sq ft) of space. The original structure, with its first expansion holds approximately 4,400 square metres (47,000 sq ft) worth of exhibit space. The building's second expansion annex comprise approximately 1,300 square metres (14,000 sq ft) of space, bringing

9408-402: The museum with the largest fossil collection in Canada. As of November 2021, the museum's collection holds five Guinness World Records due to its unique collection of fossils; including the best-preserved Borealopelta , and a Albertonectes fossil that has the longest neck recorded. Items from the collection are either used for research, or for museum exhibits. Approximately 0.5 per cent of

9520-457: The museum's exhibits, and educational outreach programs. The museum's research team was initially founded in the early 1980s, and was initially tasked with searching for specimens for the museum's exhibits and collections. After the demand for exhibit-quality specimens was met, the museum's researchers were reoriented towards documenting and interpreting the geology, and fossils of Midland Provincial Park, Dinosaur Provincial Park, and other areas in

9632-695: The museum's informal working name was the Palaeontological Museum and Research Institute , although it was changed by Baird to the Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, in honour of Joseph Tyrrell , a geologist of the Geological Survey of Canada . Tyrrell accidentally discovered the first reported dinosaur fossil at the Red Deer River valley, while searching for coal seams in 1884. The Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology

9744-528: The museum. The development of the museum was largely led by the institution's first director, David Baird. The Provincial Museum of Alberta 's palaeontology program, including its collection, and a large portion of its staff, was spun-off in 1981 in preparation for the opening of the new museum. The staff of the future palaeontology museum worked in a temporary office space in downtown Edmonton until 1982, when they were relocated to another temporary office, laboratory, and workshop in Drumheller. Prior to opening,

9856-540: The numerous teleost fishes, which in turn evolved into new advanced and modern forms ( Neoteleostei ). Ichthyosaurs and pliosaurs , on the other hand, became extinct during the Cenomanian-Turonian anoxic event . Near the end of the Cretaceous Period, flowering plants diversified. In temperate regions, familiar plants like magnolias , sassafras , roses , redwoods , and willows could be found in abundance. The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event

9968-407: The open sea. Though primarily represented by azhdarchids , other forms like pteranodontids , tapejarids ( Caiuajara and Bakonydraco ), nyctosaurids and uncertain forms ( Piksi , Navajodactylus ) are also present. Historically, it has been assumed that pterosaurs were in decline due to competition with birds, but it appears that neither group overlapped significantly ecologically, nor

10080-414: The outcome of events such as mutations and horizontal gene transfer , which provide genetic variation , with genetic drift and natural selection driving changes in this variation over time. Within the next few years the role and operation of DNA in genetic inheritance were discovered, leading to what is now known as the "Central Dogma" of molecular biology . In the 1960s molecular phylogenetics ,

10192-452: The principal types of evidence about ancient life, and geochemical evidence has helped to decipher the evolution of life before there were organisms large enough to leave body fossils. Estimating the dates of these remains is essential but difficult: sometimes adjacent rock layers allow radiometric dating , which provides absolute dates that are accurate to within 0.5%, but more often paleontologists have to rely on relative dating by solving

10304-471: The province. The museum has maintained a 500-square-metre (5,400 sq ft) permanent field station at Dinosaur Provincial Park since 1987. Other areas in Canada where the museum's research program has conducted fieldwork includes British Columbia, the Canadian Arctic, Manitoba , and Saskatchewan . The museum has conducted a number of research collaborations with other institutions, including

10416-580: The provincial government formally announced plans to build a palaeontology museum. However, the museum was built in Midland Provincial Park near Drumheller , as opposed to Dinosaur Provincial Park. The construction of the museum formed a part of a larger initiative from premier Peter Lougheed , to establish a network of provincially-operated museums and interpretive centres in select small towns and rural areas throughout Alberta. The provincial government had allocated C$ 30 million to build

10528-450: The purposes of research, palaeontological technicians have performed independent, or collaborative research projects at the museum in the past. The majority of the research papers authored by members of the museum's research program is devoted to vertebrates , with its members having published less than 40 papers on macro plants, palynomorphs , and invertebrates as of 2015. Findings from the research program are regularly incorporated into

10640-432: The radioactive element was incorporated into the rock. Radioactive elements are common only in rocks with a volcanic origin, and so the only fossil-bearing rocks that can be dated radiometrically are a few volcanic ash layers. Consequently, paleontologists must usually rely on stratigraphy to date fossils. Stratigraphy is the science of deciphering the "layer-cake" that is the sedimentary record, and has been compared to

10752-701: The same approach as historical scientists: construct a set of hypotheses about the causes and then look for a "smoking gun". Paleontology lies between biology and geology since it focuses on the record of past life, but its main source of evidence is fossils in rocks. For historical reasons, paleontology is part of the geology department at many universities: in the 19th and early 20th centuries, geology departments found fossil evidence important for dating rocks, while biology departments showed little interest. Paleontology also has some overlap with archaeology , which primarily works with objects made by humans and with human remains, while paleontologists are interested in

10864-478: The similarity of the DNA in their genomes . Molecular phylogenetics has also been used to estimate the dates when species diverged, but there is controversy about the reliability of the molecular clock on which such estimates depend. The simplest definition of "paleontology" is "the study of ancient life". The field seeks information about several aspects of past organisms: "their identity and origin, their environment and evolution, and what they can tell us about

10976-470: The slow recovery from this catastrophe a previously obscure group, archosaurs , became the most abundant and diverse terrestrial vertebrates. One archosaur group, the dinosaurs, were the dominant land vertebrates for the rest of the Mesozoic , and birds evolved from one group of dinosaurs. During this time mammals' ancestors survived only as small, mainly nocturnal insectivores , which may have accelerated

11088-462: The specimens that were purchased were acquired in the early 1980s, when the institution was provided a large acquisition budget in preparation for its opening. Approximately 3,000 specimens are added to the collection annually. Guided tours of the surrounding Midland Provincial Park are offered by the museum staff. The museum also operate several outreach programs, providing students hands-on field training, and conducting several "pay-to-dig" programs in

11200-631: The study of anatomically modern humans . It now uses techniques drawn from a wide range of sciences, including biochemistry , mathematics , and engineering. Use of all these techniques has enabled paleontologists to discover much of the evolutionary history of life , almost back to when Earth became capable of supporting life, nearly 4 billion years ago. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised sub-divisions, some of which focus on different types of fossil organisms while others study ecology and environmental history, such as ancient climates . Body fossils and trace fossils are

11312-629: The systematic study of fossils emerged as an integral part of the changes in natural philosophy that occurred during the Age of Reason . In the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci made various significant contributions to the field as well as depicted numerous fossils. Leonardo's contributions are central to the history of paleontology because he established a line of continuity between the two main branches of paleontology – ichnology and body fossil paleontology. He identified

11424-414: The title "royal" from Queen Elizabeth II . The museum's building was expanded twice in the 21st century. The first expansion was designed by BCW Architects, and was completed in 2003; while the second expansion was designed by Kasian Architecture, and was completed in 2019. The museum's personal collection includes over 160,000 cataloged fossils, consisting of over 350 holotypes , providing the museum with

11536-509: The vegetation that grew in Alberta during that era. Opened in 2019, the Learning Lounge is the museum's newest exhibit, and serves as the museum's interactive and hands-on exhibit, and includes a bronze statue of an Albertosaurus , and interactive displays on how dinosaurs ate, moved, and interacted with other organisms. As of 2020, the museum's collection held over 350 holotypes , and approximately 160,000 cataloged fossils; providing

11648-433: The very end of the epoch; the same can be said for true marsupials . Instead, nearly all known eutherian and metatherian fossils belong to other groups. In the seas, mosasaurs suddenly appeared and underwent a spectacular evolutionary radiation. Modern sharks also appeared and penguin-like polycotylid plesiosaurs (3 meters long) and huge long-necked elasmosaurs (13 meters long) also diversified. These predators fed on

11760-406: The word "palaeontology" to refer to the study of ancient living organisms through fossils. As knowledge of life's history continued to improve, it became increasingly obvious that there had been some kind of successive order to the development of life. This encouraged early evolutionary theories on the transmutation of species . After Charles Darwin published Origin of Species in 1859, much of

11872-454: Was "seeded" from elsewhere , but most research concentrates on various explanations of how life could have arisen independently on Earth. For about 2,000 million years microbial mats , multi-layered colonies of different bacteria, were the dominant life on Earth. The evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis enabled them to play the major role in the oxygenation of the atmosphere from about 2,400  million years ago . This change in

11984-475: Was a large-scale mass extinction of animal and plant species in a geologically short period of time, approximately 66  million years ago (Ma). It is widely known as the K–T extinction event and is associated with a geological signature, usually a thin band dated to that time and found in various parts of the world, known as the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–T boundary). K is the traditional abbreviation for

12096-589: Was contracted to build the learning lounge expansion. The expansion saw the Distance Learning Studio and accessible washrooms enlarged, as well as the creation of additional classrooms, laboratory spaces, an interactive learning lounge and rest area, and other multipurpose rooms. As of 2020, the museum building houses thirteen exhibits that display approximately 800 fossils on permanent display. Audio-visual, interactive computers, and video programs and displays typically provide relevant information on

12208-425: Was designed to accommodate students from elementary to post-secondary levels of education. In 2019, the museum completed construction of a learning lounge, adding approximately 1,300 square metres (14,000 sq ft) to the main building. The learning lounge expansion was designed by Kasian Architecture, along with the museum, and the government of Alberta. LEAR Construction, a Calgary-based construction firm,

12320-564: Was opened to the public on 25 September 1985. In the same year, the museum announced its participation the China-Canada Dinosaur Project , the institution's first collaborative, out-of-province research project. The collaborative effort marked the first meaningful collaboration between Chinese and western palaeontologists since the Chinese Communist Revolution . On 28 June 1990, the museum

12432-524: Was renamed the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, after it was bestowed the title royal by Queen Elizabeth II . The museum's volunteer support group , the Royal Tyrrell Museum Cooperating Society, was formed in 1993, and helps fund museum-sanctioned research projects, publications, postdoctoral fellowships, and other museum-centred events. In 2003, the museum completed its first major expansion to its building,

12544-528: Was warmer than present, although throughout the period a cooling trend is evident. The tropics became restricted to equatorial regions and northern latitudes experienced markedly more seasonal climatic conditions. Due to plate tectonics , the Americas were gradually moving westward, causing the Atlantic Ocean to expand. The Western Interior Seaway divided North America into eastern and western halves; Appalachia and Laramidia . India maintained

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