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18Aug2026 initial creation of this webPage

Wayne Marshall's Fossil World private museum

Table of Contents


Wayne's Fossil World tour by [image, note]s

The following table provides a detailed view of the museum, especially for those who cannot visit in person. But for those who visit the museum, this section may be even more useful AFTER their visit, as a means of checking what they have seen or missed, reflecting over the details, and stimulating stray thoughts that may come up in the aftermath.

Introduction, location, challenges for visitors

Wayne Marshall: some see rocks, some see history
https://www.facebook.com/people/Waynes-Fossil-World/61578276824172/?sk=photos
Worlds greatest treasure hunt

00 outside front view of museum.jpg
24 Badlands treasure hunt: can YOU find the fossils in the displays.jpg

Test your ability to spot fossils, in our interactive badlands display! It was built by Wayne's daughter Dessie using dad's real fossils embedded into it, along with typical rocks and other features commonly found in the badlands.

For the easy route, we have included some photos that match up with actual fossils located within the display for you to find. For the more advanced dino hunters, there is a list of fossils that can be found in the display cases throughout the museum and studied for reference. Train your eye on the displays, then come back here and see if you can find them all!


This display contains:
  • 06- Champosaurus vertebras
  • 12- Crocodile teeth
  • 06- Albertosaurus teeth
  • 18- fish teeth
  • 10- pieces of turtle shell
  • 06- fish scales
  • 04- crocodile scutes
  • 12- dickbill/horned dinosaur teeth
  • 02- oyster shells
  • 11- petrified wood
  • 03- fish vertebras
  • 53- incomplete fossil specimens (not counting Ornithomimimid metatarsal)
= 185 total fossil specimens
01 seashore painting and eroded cliff 3D model.jpg
This 3D model resembles cliffs and hillsides in the Drumehller Badlands area. Within 20 km of the museum is the tourist site "Hoodoos" hillside that has flat rocks perched on top of sandstone pillars.

Raptors (meat eaters)
02 raptor bipedal [teeth, claw, vertebrae] center.jpg

Small Therapods of Late ???
This exhibit contains fossils from the various raptors and ostrich dinosaurs that were running around during the late Cretaceous period in ...
(struthiomimus, dromaeosourid, troodontid, saurornitholestes)


Atrociraptor Marshalli, the raptor Wayne Marshall discovered, is a type of dromaeosaurid., He also faound a group of incomplete ostrich dinosaurs...
Fossils in this museum The white dot indicates that the fossil originated from the horseshoe canyon formation, as opposed to the more prolific Dinosaur Park formation. The blue dot marks a fossil whose cast is available in the gift shop.

Therapod (meat eater) bones were hollow, like thos of modern birds. Whereas most plant eating dinos had denser bonesw full of marrow. This rule of thumb can help towards identifying an incomplete fossil. Look closely ...
02 raptor bipedal [teeth, claw, vertebrae] left.jpg

The tail that you see here was completed using the vertebrae of various raptors and ostrich dinosaurs that Wayne found over the years. The one ion the small stand is a ?sacral upelvic ???, which is actually more than one bone. ??? for added strength and stability.
02 raptor bipedal [teeth, claw, vertebrae] right.jpg
see [center, left] images for comments
04 large [femur, tibia] x [duckbill, albertasaurus, ceratop], petrified wood.jpg
05 Albertosaurus [pelvic bone, teeth], right.jpg
05 spot the teeth bites in bones, left.jpg
06 Albertosaurus teeth [good, sun deteriorate] condition, left.jpg
07 Albertosaurus teeth, reconstruct sun deteriorate puzzle, right.jpg
08 Albertosaurus teeth, missing tip search, tooth passed through predator stomach, left.jpg
09 Albertosaurus [largest foot, teeth, vertebrae, hollow limb bone].jpg
10 teeth blunted and battle-worn, skull [blood, nerve] channels and emerging tooth.jpg
11 Albertosaurus teeth, poor image resolution.jpg

[fresh, brackish, marine] waters
03 marsh [crocodile, clam, oyster].jpg

Leidyosuchus: an ancient crocodile
[fragments [jaw, skull], molar teeth, teeth with roots, scutes (body armor)]
Although not as gigantic as the specimens being uncovered in Saharan Africa, this creature was no lightweight either. It likely grew to around 4.5 meteres (15 feet) long.
These fossils are uncommon in Drumhellere area, but abundant in Dinosaur Park Formation East of here. Wayne knew that any trips to that area would end with a good number of shiny croc teeth added to his collection.

Freshwater: If you wade into the river flowing by this museum, you may come across a clam resembling these 70 million year old specimens. If they had possessed shoulders, they would have shrugged at the great extinction event that ended the age of the dinosaurs.
Brackish water: These bivalves inhabited that special zone, where a lot of baby fishes likely also lived. The sand that they were preserved in has turned to stone, which you can identify as the greyish layers in the valley around you.
Coastal marine: Oysters and their kin are a true marker of a coastal environment, and finding oyster beds is a valuable indicator for scientists. Pockets of them can be found in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation, and a few can be found in the gift shop.
03 marsh [snail, champosaur (ghar)].jpg

Snails: Another diminutive species that has remined unchanged throughout the ages. Late Cretaceous Alberta was home to both terrestrial, and aquatic species. Because Wayne came across most of these snails in the vicinity of oyster beds, it is likely they were of the latter variety.

Champosaurs: These creatures resembled what is the modern day gharial, and seem to have been quitre common in ancient Alberta. Although at first glance they seem similar to a crocodile, they were comparatively dainty, and were on the menu of Leidyosuchus. Evidence of this can be found in the "pathology" exhibit.
03 marsh [turtle, fish].jpg

Turtles: Around ancient ??? the dinosaurs. Much like that fridge in your grandmother's basement, they lived before the time of the dinosaurs and persist in much the same state today.
vertebras, limb bones, toe claws, leg armour, teeth, toe bones,
Basilemys was the largest, and is perhaps the most well-known. The heavier, pitted shell fragments you can seeon the bottom shelf are Basilemys specimens.

Fish: Pictured are just a few of the many species of fish that lived in late Cretaceous Alberta. Some are ... preserved, yet so small they require a sharp eye to find.
Myledaphus teeth, jaw fragments, teeth, scales, vertebras
drawing of turtle shell: courtesy of Don Brinkman, PhD

Ceratopsian, Ankylosaurus, Hadrosaur (duckbill)
12 Ceratopsian [toe, claw, frill, vertebrae, orbital (eye), jaw, dorsal rib, teeth].jpg
13 Ankylosaurus [lower jaw, teeth, skull armor, limg, toe, claw, diverse armor].jpg
14 Hadrosaur (duckbill) [toe, finger, wrist, vertebrae, humerous, marrow fibre web].jpg

Plants
18 plant diversity [deciduous leaves, conifers] uncommon fossils near ghost town of Wayne.jpg
19 petrified wood in [quartz, ironstone], right.jpg
19 petrified wood with silica quartz, left.jpg
20 pine [cone, seed]s in [silt, iron]stone, many unknown, left.jpg
20 pine [cone, seed]s in [silt, iron]stone, many unknown, right.jpg

Fossil carousel
27 fossil carousel 1 of 6.jpg
27 fossil carousel 2 of 6.jpg
27 fossil carousel 3 of 6.jpg
27 fossil carousel 4 of 6.jpg
27 fossil carousel 5 of 6.jpg

Fossil [preparation, natural preservation]
16 fossils in preparation, left.jpg
17 siltstone: fossils [harder, more color], crystal melt flow along wood.jpg
21 Wayne Marshalls story, prep lab for latest finds.jpg
22 fractured fossil collection, search at [top, bottom] of valley.jpg
23 Waynes fossil-hunting bag with [glue, collection bags, tissue paper, small tool for [surface, cracks, dirt], rigid containers].jpg

Poster [event, new]s

25 poster: Dinosaur world tour premier, Edmonton 14May-25Jul1991.jpg
25 poster original: National Museum of Natural Sciences, Ottawa 1987 Clive Coy to Wayne Marshall.jpg
25 posters: Wayne and daughter Dessie made life-sized Albertasaurus for town of Patricia, near Dinosaur provincial park..jpg

25 poster: Tyrrell Museum opening celebrations 25-29Sep1985.jpg
28 newspaper: Atrociraptor, discovered by Wayne Marshall in 1995.jpg
26 Dessie Marshalls hand-carved leaf art, orange colored wood due to burning coal seam.jpg


Acknowledgements

The following people assisted [Wayne, Dessie] Marshall during the setup and ongoing operation of "Waynes Fossil Museum". Also listed are key [people, organisation]s that have help, collaborat]ed with Wayne of the 50 years he has been collecting fossils.
(Howell: my apologies as this part I don't know. You will have to wait for [Wayne, Dessie] to add a more complete list to their own webSite if they create such a thing.)

Royal Tyrell Museum related
Don Brinkman: Tyrrell curator emeritus, turtle expert: turtle fossil expertise
In 1982, Donald (Don) Brinkman began working for the Royal Tyrrell Museum as Curator of Vertebrates. He was then Director of Preservation and Research for a decade, until his retirement in November 2018. Don continues to study how ancient animals lived in their environments during the Age of Dinosaurs, with a focus on turtles. By comparing turtle specimens from Asia and North America, he investigates why some species lived where they did, what unique traits helped them survive, and how environmental conditions affected them. This research allows Don to determine why some species survived catastrophic events, while others did not.
Andy Newman, former director of Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology Neuman started at the Museum in August of 1986, less than a year after it opened to the public. His initial role was head of collections. He was in that role until 1998, when he became an assistant director. "At that point, I was a senior manager responsible for collections, prep labs, shipping and receiving. It was on the research end, but not the research itself, they were independent ." In 2007 he succeeded Dr. Bruce Naylor as the Executive Director. He was involved in fieldwork and research throughout Alberta as well as in B.C. Saskatchewan and the Arctic. As part of bringing exhibits to the world, he travelled to Eastern Canada, the United States, Paris, and Japan.

Other [paleontology, geology] experts
Andy Kendall retired geologist, ShenStone: Wildlife, Outdoors and Travel photography
Rhian Kendall: Chief Geologist Wales with the British Geological Survey (specialized in botany?) and an accomplished [Cave, Botanical, Landscape] artist

some keen fossil [enthusiast, visitor]s:


Leaden: a young man who frequently visits from Edmonton


18Aug2026: problems with this current webPage

My webpage is NOT appropriate as an official webSite for Wayne's Fossil World. I simply provide it primarily for my own reference, and as a temporary example for others until Wayne (Dessie?) prepare an official webSite. One can simply download [any, all] files from any part of my webSite, but DON'T do that generally as after 1.5 years I am still slowly working to rebuild my webSite after Identity Theft, but that is NOT a priority for me. Furthermore, paleontology is far, far from being a priority research project area for me.

Wayne is a meticulous, very experienced, and astute fossil hunter, who is happy to provide advice to younger people, as well as very experienced paleontologists. Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of this webPage is that it lacks Wayne's many conversations, and his detailed thoughts about fossil hunting and paleontology. Hopefully he will collect voice recodings recordings of his many discussions with visitors, and make some of those publicly available.

Obviously given numerous poor quality image on this webPage, I'm not a photographer. This means that children (young and in retirement like me) cannot use the images of this webPage to play Wayne's "Badlands treasure hunt: can YOU find the fossils in the displays?".

Images shown for now are loaded in full size, reduced to fit the table layouts. But this leads to far too much downloading. Normally, reduced-sized images should be used, with (right click -> open image in new tab) to view the full image.

Many narratives in the display cases as supposedly copied here are still [missing, incomplete] (19Aug2026). Perhaps some day I'll get the missing text when I return to the museum.
At some point my own perspective should be removed, and Wayne's own thinking would replace it.

At this initial stage of putting together this webPage of my visit to Wayne's Fossil World private museum, a few of my own [comment, question, interest]s appear. At some time, I should move this to a separate webPage so viewers won't be destracted from what the museum is trying to state.

Note that a key reason that I create this webPages was because of Wayne's comment on the [iridium, Nexus coal] layer marking the extinction of the dinosaurs, which hauntingly tied in with other things I've looked at over the last decade or so. But another unanticipated benefit was that writing this webPage forced me to take time to look at least some of the details, instead of skimming though quickly and lying to myself that I [know, understand] what I've been looking at.

This webPage differs from my normal approach with YouTube videos, for which I normally don't mix my own [comment, question]s with the original [selected images from video, transcript]s. I prefer that wbPage viewers get the authors' original thoughts as close as possible. The "[comment, transcript] + images" static webpage is intended to be a solid detailed reference, as videos themselves typical make for poor detailed work. One cannot flip back and forth easily in a video as one can do with pages in a book, and pure text is HUGELY more [easy, precise] for powerful searches and computations, especially across hundreds or thousands of [webPage, other file]s.

The 4-5 days time it has taken me to [visit the museum, rename cellPhotos, create this [DRAFT, incomplete] webPage, upload the files] has hurt other priorities and deadlines. Still, I can't help thinking how much more I've gained by this work, which has forced me to look at at least many museum details that I would miss by simply skimming over things quickly. I'm amazed at my own self-deception "... OK, now I know ..." by skimming. The same happend with several videos for which I extracted [image, transcript]s and retyped a fair amount of material (modern Google transcripts are far improved over just a year ago!). Painstaking observation of fossils would be better. Re-deriving the mathematics of [physics, astronomy, neural netrork]s theories is crucial in those areas as well. Later in life, I now have the feeling that the [detailed, long hours] of [observation, experiment, instrumentation, simple thinking] is far more important than theories which are so easy to spout off. The latter do help us grasp a subject, but they quickly seem to become impediments to deeper understanding. Besides, machines may do better than us at that part, eventually?

Note that the text content of this webPage facilitates unix utility (eg [find, grep, sed] regular expression [search, replace] for this webPage, or thousand of files including this webPage.


Wayne Marshall: Dinosaur extinction, OR[coal, black mat] above iridium layer

My initial fascination with Wayne's museum is that he commented on the layer of black material at, above] the iridium layer marking the extinction of the dinosaurs, as seen East of Huxley, Alberta.

His comments shocked me, as I had just spent a month or so [looking at, summarizing] a YouTube video Akkadian Enigma: Why Did the Worlds First Empire Collapse?. In that video, Marie Agnes Courty, a female French scientist (geologist, soils), presented her [data, analysis, concept, analogy's] for what may have happened 4,200 years ago. Her ideas were stunning. Moreover, they tied in extremely well with many completely different analysis of [physics, astronomy, geology, financial market, history, etc] that I have looked into over since ~2011, as well as how that may relate to major belief systems such as [mythology, religion, philosophy, science, socialism].

It is a huge stretch for me to speculate if Marie Agnes Courty may also apply phenomenologically (perhaps at a larger [time, length, theme] multifractal scale) to Wayne Marshall's comments about the dinosaur extinction layer (KPg, was KT), transition Cretaceous -> Paleocene periods (i.e. the borderline between Mesozoic & Cenozoic eras). A key issue would be [temperature, pressure, chemical, isotopic] comparison of Courty's "black mat" to the Nevus coal layer (67 Myr older), with likely transitions complicating this. I don't have time in the next year to chase this, but I think it would be fun to look into it, and it may fit with the collapse of human civilisations, as well as huge hits to human population going back at least 72 ky ago.


Dale Russell: Dinosaurs of North America cover
Dinosaur extinction, east of Huxley Alberta Dinosaur extinction, coal above iridium layer, details


Here are only a few of my other other [comment, question]s related to Wayne's museum: