Alan the Dinosaur

Alan the Dinosaur is the name given to an unidentified Sauropodomorph fossil, found in Whitby in 1995, regarded as the oldest sauropod dinosaur found in the United Kingdom. It is now in the Yorkshire Museum.[1][2]

Alan the Dinosaur
A sauropodomorph fossil in the Yorkshire Museum known as 'Alan the Dinosaur'
MaterialSandstone
Createdc.176 million years ago
Period/cultureMiddle Jurassic
Discovered1995
Whitby, North Yorkshire
Present locationYorkshire Museum, York
IdentificationYORYM: 2001.9337

Discovery and date

The fossil was discovered in Whitby in 1995 by Alan Gurr whilst on a field trip to the site led by geologist Phil Manning. A 70 lb (32 kilograms) chunk of sandstone fell from cliff face and was inspected by the finder, who spotted the fragment of vertebra. As it is not identifiable to species level, it gained the nickname 'Alan' in commemoration of its finder.[3]

It was located in the Saltwick Formation, a Mesozoic formation. Manning recovered the fossil from the base of a coastal cliff section, some 600 m east of Whitby East Pier. Although the source horizon was not definitively located, based on the relative position of the vertebra in the cliff, resting on top of the Dogger Formation, the fossil came from the Aalenian period of the Middle Jurassic and dates to 175.6 ± 2.0–171.6 ± 3.0 million years ago. This date makes the fossil the earliest evidence of a eusauropod dinosaur from the United Kingdom.[4]

Description

The fossil is a proximal caudal vertebra encased within sandstone and measuring 145 mm in length.[4]

Public display

The fossil first went on public display in the Yorkshire Museum in June 2015.[5] It was redisplayed as part of the "Yorkshire's Jurassic World Exhibition", which opened in March 2018. The exhibition features a virtual reality experience in which users can feed a digital reconstruction of Alan.[6]

References
  1. Lusher, A. (2 June 2015). "Jurassic part: dinosaur bone, 176 million years old, found in Yorkshire". The Independent. p. 16.
  2. Moody, O. (2 June 2015). "Alan, the oldest dinosaur in Britain finally falls off a cliff". The Times. p. 24.
  3. "YORKSHIRE'S OLDEST NEW ADDITION TO THE 'JURASSIC WORLD'". York Museums Trust. Retrieved 17 October 2018.
  4. Manning, P.L.; Egerton, V.M.; Romano, M. (2015). "A New Sauropod Dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic of the United Kingdom". PLoS ONE. 10 (6): e0128107. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0128107. PMC 4452486. PMID 26030865.
  5. "Britain's oldest dinosaur fossil found on North Yorkshire coast". The Guardian. 1 June 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2018.
  6. "Inside Yorkshire Museum's new Jurassic World attraction". Yorkshire Post. 17 March 2018. Retrieved 17 October 2018.

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