Sweltering heat doesn't deter paleontologists digging for skeletons

ARLINGTON — Hiking down to the Arlington Archosaur Site on a sweltering midafternoon was not unlike deliberate descent into a live volcano, but this was a trifling matter. There was treasure to behold.

The site, in an unexpectedly barren tract bypassed by city sprawl, is turning out to be a prolific mine for spectacular fossils.

A dogged little team of paleontologists, which already has uncovered most of a dinosaur skeleton there, discovered in the last week a second major “bone bed” just a few feet away from their original dig.

The latest find is an ancient crocodile (the term “archosaur” covers prehistoric reptiles, including crocs and dinosaurs). It’s only the second ever found in the Woodbine Formation, a roughly 20-mile-wide strip of Cretaceous-era deposits stretching from Austin to the Oklahoma border.

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