More News

One hundred million years ago, long before suburbs and shopping malls, Maryland was a swampy delta swarming with dinosaurs.

On a hot summer afternoon, a crowd of amateur dinosaur-hunters young and old stood hunched over on a dirt outcrop tucked away at the back of an office complex, searching for signs of Maryland's prehistoric past at Dinosaur Park in Laurel.

About 125 people, including a group of almost 100 from the Prince George's and Laurel historical societies, came out Saturday to dig around in the hopes of making their own discovery at what paleontologist Peter Kranz calls "the most important fossil-hunting site east of the Mississippi River."

A series of signs near the park entrance explain the location's history and how it came to be one of the most productive fossil sites on the East Coast.

Fossils from dinosaurs, crocodylians, turtles and plants dating back 65 to 144 million years — to the early Cretaceous period — have been found at the site, where plant and animal remains washed into an ancient lake and became trapped in the sediment.

The 41-acre park, which opened in October 2009, is located on a patch of land that used to hold open-pit iron mines that fed the nearby Muirkirk ironworks until the early 1920s. Miners first discovered fossilized bones and teeth in 1858, and the site has steadily produced prehistoric finds ever since, including the discovery of Astrodon johnstoni, a relative of the Brachiosaur that was named Maryland's state dinosaur in 1998.

Children scratched and kicked excitedly at the dirt, rushing toward volunteers with hands outstretched when they thought they had found something.

"I watch this dinosaur stuff on TV," said Nicholas Spicer, 7, of Riverdale before scrambling up a hill to resume digging.

Visitors are free to take home chunks of lignite, a low-grade form of coal that's a common find at the site, but plant and animal fossil discoveries are bagged, marked with the finder's name and sent to the Smithsonian Institution for further study.

The biggest amateur discovery Saturday was a fossilized pinecone found by 7-year-old Deanna Middlebusher of Montpelier.

"We're having fun," said Deanna's mother, Shelle Middlebusher. "The kids are getting all dirty and having a blast."

The park is free and open to the public year-round on the first and third Saturdays of each month from noon to 4 p.m., but schools and groups can set up a weekday appointment for a $50 fee.

Don Creveling, the archaeology program manager at the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, said the park routinely draws more than 100 visitors on public days.

"We're very pleased with the success of the park," said Creveling. "It's really gratifying when children come out and find something."

Though the park has been open for less than a year, Kranz already has big ideas for its future. He said he'd eventually like to turn it into a full-fledged "dinosaur forest" complete with animatronic creatures that would give visitors a glimpse of what prehistoric Maryland might have looked like.

"People think about dinosaurs as elsewhere, as well as else when," said Kranz. "They had to be somewhere on the surface of the Earth. They just happened to be here."