Editorial Type:
Article Category: Research Article
| Online Publication Date: 05 Nov 2007
Thomas Chesmer Weston and the Red Deer River Fossil Fields
Thomas Chesmer Weston and the Red Deer River Fossil Fields
Page Range: 3 – 5
Thomas Chesmer Weston was an English lapidary, who was employed by the Geological Survey of Canada from 1858. He enjoyed field work and made important collections of minerals and fossils in various parts of Canada. In 1889 he made a boat trip down the Red Deer River of Alberta, assisted by Roderick McKenzie of Red Deer. Weston made important fossil finds on this trip, but his most notable discovery was the "Belly River" fossil field, now the Dinosaur Provincial Park. He recognized that this field was older than that of the "Edmonton Series" of Tyrrell, and predicted that it would be one of the world's great fossil fields, a prediction that his successors have fully confirmed.
COPE, E. D., 1876, Descriptions of some vertebrate remains from the Fort Union beds of Montana: Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Proceedings, v. 1878, p. 243-281.
COPE, E. D., 1892, On the skull of the Dinosaurian Laelaps incrassatus, Cope: American Philosophical Society, Proceedings, v. 30, p. 240-245.
LAMBE, L. M., 1904, On Dryptosaurus incrassatus (Cope), from the Edmonton Series of the North-West Territory: Geological Survey of Canada, Contributions to Canadian Palaeontology, v. 3, part 3, p. 5-25.
MARSH, O. C., 1877, Notice of a new and gigantic dinosaur: American Journal of Sciences and Arts, ser. 4, v. 14, art. 13, p. 87-88.
OSBORN, H. F., 1905, Tyrannosaurus and other Cretaceous carnivorous dinosaurs: American Museum of Natural History, Bulletin, v. 21, art. 14, p. 259-265.
WESTON, T. C., 1889, (Field notes) National Archives of Canada, Record Group 45, v. 176, no. 2853, 50 manuscript pages.
WESTON, T. C., 1899, Reminiscences among the Rocks in connection with the Geological Survey of Canada: Warwick Bros. and Rutter, Toronto, p. 1-329.