Introduction to the Special Issue commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, with a summary of the museum’s early history and its research contributions

Abstract

Located just west of Drumheller, in southern Alberta, Canada, the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology (RTMP) is nestled among outcrops of the Upper Cretaceous Horseshoe Canyon Formation exposed along the Red Deer River valley (Fig. 1). Since it officially opened on 25 September 19851, the museum has become one of Alberta’s must-see tourist attractions, a significant contributor to the local economy, and earned an international reputation for the quality of its palaeontological collections and the research conducted by its scientists. The RTMP is unique within Canada in being the only government-supported museum dedicated to palaeontology, and it is one of the few such institutions in the world. Fig. 1. The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. (A) Front of museum and main entrance (circa 2010), looking westwards and with horizontal beds of the Upper Cretaceous Horseshoe Canyon Formation exposed in the walls of the Red Deer River valley in the distance. (B) Aerial photograph, oblique angle and looking to the north-northeast. The museum sits on top of the number 7 coal seam (sensu Gibson 1977) and at the base of the Horsethief Member of the Horseshoe Canyon Formation (D.A. Eberth, pers. comm., 2015). That stratigraphic position correlates with an age of about 71.5 Ma (i.e., late Campanian) and lies within the upper part of the Edmontosaurus regalis – Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis dinosaur assemblage zone (see Eberth et al. 2013, fig. 6). (C) The iconic “running theropod” logo that until recently graced the exterior of the museum, below a life-sized tyrannosaurid sculpture by Brian Cooley (one of many such sculptures by Cooley that have been featured at the museum since its opening in 1985) and with the education wing (opened in 2003 as the ATCO Tyrrell Learning Centre) in the background. (D) The Cretaceous Alberta life-sized diorama (opened in 2007), an example of a RTMP exhibit that relies heavily on discoveries and interpretations by museum researchers, in this case work done in the Albertosaurus bonebed and at other localities throughout the Horseshoe Canyon Formation. All photographs courtesy of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. This Special Issue of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences presents a collection of papers commemorating the RTMP’s 30th or pearl anniversary. Our rationale for doing a 30th anniversary volume was two-fold. First, it is an opportunity to showcase the breadth of research conducted by current and former museum scientists as well as by some colleagues having a history of collaboration with the RTMP. The 13 invited papers included in this volume are a mix of review and original research papers, all thematically focused on the geology and palaeontology of Alberta. To varying degrees, each contribution is the result of work supported by the RTMP and relies on specimens housed in the museum’s collections. Second, the 30th anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on the RTMP’s history and its research program. As is typical for most institutions, the RTMP has done little to formally document its own history. This year likely will be the last major milestone for which the original generation of museum staff are still working and available to share their recollections about the museum, fieldwork, and research. Already, deaths and departures have winnowed away part of the original …