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“We will continue working on the site for our careers, and then years later researchers will likely go back and collect data that we are not looking for today and never even dreamed of,” said Coy, who helped recover and prepare specimens and is among the authors whose work was published. “You couldn’t uncover what’s there in a lifetime.”

The precise location of the site is being kept secret to prevent vandalism, but Coy said it stretches kilometres and covers an extinct riverbed. Bones have been excavated there since 2006 by a team led by Philip Currie, the University of Alberta’s Canada Research Chair in Dinosaur Paleontology.

Scientists from around the world contributed to the special issue, including paleontology students who conducted field work at the site and then produced research projects based on their experiences. Some of the fossils they collected are on display in downtown Edmonton at the university’s galleries in Enterprise Square.

Coy said the discover of fossilized remains of a triceratops is one of the biggest surprises, along with teeth that apparently fell out as predators were ripping the skin of smaller dinosaurs.

Although all of the animals are from the same era, it is still unknown whether they died at the same time, or if some were drawn to the site by the smell of rotting meat.

“We have collected enough data that we had something definitive to say about the site in a special volume,” Coy said. “We have benefited from research conducted by people working on similar sites in Alaska, Montana and Siberia, and felt it was our turn.

“We want to push the understanding of these animals forward.”