Each field season, the BLM issues paleontological resources use permits for survey and limited surface collection or excavation to qualified paleontologists and researchers for paleontological research on public lands. Along the Colville River’s ancient sediments in the Liscomb Bone Bed, about 300 miles northwest of Fairbanks and 100 miles south of the Arctic Ocean, lies a trove of fossils.

This is where researchers discovered the fossilized bones of the “ancient grazer,” Ungrunaaluk kuukpikensis (oo-GREW-naluck KOOK-pik-en-sis), Alaska’s newest hydrosaur and the fourth species unique to northern Alaska. These herbivorous polar dinosaurs likely roamed in herds and used their hundreds of grinding teeth to survive on coarse vegetation. They grew to 30-feet long. It is also likely these dinosaurs were warm blooded, though that debate continues.

Paleontological research along the Colville River is extreme fieldwork. Researchers often travel up the Dalton Highway from Fairbanks, then by a charter plane to the site, and rappel down cliffs to the bone sites. Druckenmeyer says that “dinosaurs … living here in the Arctic were a completely different species from those who lived at the same time at lower latitudes… this suggests we had our own unique polar community up here.”

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