The first season of the BBC’s aired in 2000, and still remembers the excitement of watching and rewatching the VHS copy his uncle had taped.
“That was like my dinosaur bible, essentially,” says Coppock, now a PhD student in the ß÷ßäÉçÇø’s Department of Biological Sciences.
“I grew up watching those shows. They were the coolest thing in the world, and just kind of helped establish dinosaurs in my mind,” adds , a paleoartist and master’s student.
The BBC recently aired a second season of the wildly popular series, bringing the adventures of a whole new group of dinosaurs to life on screen. One of them, an Albertosaurus they named Rose, was unearthed near Morrin, Alta. Coppock, Sharpe and master’s student were part of the crew, co-led by PhD students and , that helped excavate Rose.
“Our episode, and our team, is the only one in the series that’s led by grad students,” says McIntosh. “It felt sort of vindicating that they’re putting us on the same level as everyone else featured in Walking With Dinosaurs.”
“Shows like this inspired a lot of us to pursue paleontology in the first place,” adds Garros. “It’s crazy to think that we could be inspiring the next generation of scientists.”
Rose the Albertosaurus gets her close-up
As Powers explains, the BBC contacted more than 200 paleontologists as they crafted the lineup for the six-episode series. They wanted to find “an active dig of a specific specimen that could kind of tell the story of that species.”
Rose fit the bill perfectly. Albertosaurus, which Powers calls the “faster and sleeker cousin of T. rex,” isn’t a species that is depicted too often, which made it all the more exciting to bring to life on screen, the students explain.
Powers and Sharpe worked exhaustively with the BBC to ensure the CGI depictions of the Albertosaurus were as accurate as possible, from the size of its scales to the way it walked. “We were very happy with the final product of how the animals in the CGI segments turned out,” says Sharpe.
“I do think it’s the most accurate Albertosaurus that’s ever been depicted,” says Powers.
Garros adds that they “strongly suspect that this depiction of Albertosaurus might become the definitive one people will look to for reference in the future.”
The presence of a film crew initially introduced a few challenges in the excavation process. Everything took longer than usual. Team members would often have to stay in the same area rather than spreading out as they normally would. They’d be asked to trudge up the same hills over and over as the film crew tried to get the perfect shot. And if a discovery was made off-camera, it would need to be re-enacted.
However, “by the end of our field season they became like members of our crew,” says Powers. There were also a few unexpected benefits to having them on site — for example, since the film crew had drones to capture footage, they were able to take top-down photos of the quarry where Rose was being excavated, making it easier to map the site.
And, as Garros says, the film crew “did get a lot of really wonderful moments where our genuine enthusiasm and excitement were captured live in the moment as we discovered things.”
To explain a bit more about the Albertosaurus anatomy and provide additional visuals for the audience, the students hiked out several bones and fossils from the , carefully packed in heavy wooden cases. However, McIntosh and Powers banded together to create clear guidelines about what they were and weren’t willing to do with the delicate specimens in the name of entertainment.
“They did ask about the potential to make it look like we found them, but we didn’t think anyone would go for that,” says Powers.
Though a paleontologist pulling a fossil or bone from the ground may make for nail-biting television, McIntosh explains that “we were not OK with putting them in the dirt and burying them. They were used in a supplementary capacity where we could keep them safe.”
With the approach of a new field season this summer, McIntosh and Powers are getting ready to hand over the reins to their BBC co-stars. Coppock, Garros, Sharpe and master’s student will collectively lead the fieldwork moving forward as the former leaders move on to new adventures.
“We’ve had incredible luck in general with our fieldwork out in Morrin, and I have a good feeling that something else really exciting is going to pop up,” says McIntosh.
The students’ dig is featured in episode four of the show. The following episode features ’s field crew working alongside staff from the to tell the story of a Pachyrhinosaurus named Albie.