Discover the true story of a kid who found an amazing fossil—and helped dig up a dino.
Learning Objective: Children will discuss a true story about a 12-year-old boy who found an important dinosaur fossil.
Courtesy of the Hrushkin Family
Nathan
When Nathan Hrushkin (HROOSH-kin) was 12 years old, he went for a hike with his dad. They were in Horseshoe Canyon, a dry and rocky part of Canada.
Nathan had been here with his dad many times before. But he still watched the ground carefully. Why? He was looking for something buried there.
Nathan climbed up a steep, dusty hill. That’s when he saw something that shocked him. He shouted, “Dad, you need to get up here!”
Nathan’s Dino Dream
NCC
Nathan and Nathan's Dad
Ever since he was 6, Nathan had wanted to be a paleontologist. Those are scientists who study things that lived millions of years ago, like dinosaurs. But how do they find out about dinos that lived so long ago?
One thing they do is look for fossils of dinosaur bones.
“I’ve always just been so fascinated with how their bones go from bones like ours to solid rock,” says Nathan.
He and his dad went hiking in Horseshoe Canyon a lot. But on this hike, he found what he had always been looking for. It was something that even a real paleontologist would dream of finding—a dino bone.
The Bone Mystery
NCC
A paleontologist digs out the fossil.
Nathan was excited. The fossil looked just like one from “a TV show or a cartoon or something,” he says.
Did he pick up the bone and take it home? No way! He knew that fossils are very fragile. They can easily break.
Nathan and his dad took a picture of it instead. Then they sent the picture to a museum. They didn’t know what kind of bone it was. Maybe the museum could help.
Soon a paleontologist from the museum emailed them. He said the fossil was a dino arm bone, and it came from a hadrosaur.
Now the museum was going to send scientists to the canyon. They wanted to look for more hadrosaur bones. Nathan would get to see a real dino dig!
The Big Dig
Mark Stevenson/Stocktrek Images/Getty Images
Hadrosaur
The scientists arrived at the canyon. They dug for months. Thanks to their hard work, the scientists found 30 more bones! They were all part of the same hadrosaur that Nathan had found. These bones were 69 million years old!
The scientists knew that the dinosaur was really important. We don’t have a lot of fossils from around the time that the hadrosaur lived. These bones were rare. Nathan had found something amazing.
Looking for More
John Weinstein/Field Museum Library/Getty Images
This is a hadrosaur skeleton in a museum.
Nathan is proud of the fossil he found. Now he’s one step closer to becoming a real paleontologist. He hopes to one day discover a dinosaur that no one has seen before. Until then, Nathan can go see a hadrosaur fossil in the museum, and he’ll know that he found an important part of history.
Nathan thinks that other kids can find amazing things in nature. He says, “My advice to kids is to get outdoors and explore as much as possible. You never know what you’re going to discover!”
How a Fossil Forms
It takes millions of years for a fossil to form.
Art by John Carrozza
Step 1:
An animal like a dinosaur dies. Its body is left.
Art by John Carrozza
Step 2:
A lot of time goes by. The dino bones get covered with water, mud, and rocks. They harden into a fossil.
Art by John Carrozza
Step 3:
After even more time goes by, the water dries up. Some of the dirt is gone. Now people can find the fossil!
