Girl Finds Dinosaur Bone at Md. Park

A new dinosaur park located near Laurel, Maryland hasn't been open very long, but already one of its visitor's finds is headed to the Smithsonian.

The park has been open for less than a month and already an Annandale girl has made a 100 million year old discovery.

It may look like nothing more than a small piece of rock, but what the girl found is actually a piece of vertebrae from a meat-eating dinosaur. Gabrielle Block, 9, found it during a visit to Dinosaur Park in October. It was nestled in a pile of dirt on the site.

"I got a handful and sorted through and it looked neat," Gabrielle told FOX 5.

That neat little piece turned out to be a very important fossil bone from near a raptor's tail. The 41-acre site protects rare fossil resources from the cretaceous period some 144 to 65 million years ago.

The park opens to visitors the first and third Saturdays of the month when they can observe and assist paleontologists like Dave Hacker searching for fossils. He says Gabrielle's find even shocked him.

"I was impressed-- I was impressed," said Hacker. "As far as I know, it was her first time fossil hunting. Most people see rock-- they can't tell a bone from a rock."

But Gabrielle had a hunch it could be something more. She took it to a paleontologist on site and he told her it was a dinosaur bone.

"It's really cool," Gabrielle said. "I am really excited."

Gabrielle plans on returning to the park next month, but she's realistic about what she may or may not discover.

"Probably nothing else, but who knows-- I may get lucky again," said Gabrielle.

The bone will be sent to the Smithsonian in the coming weeks, and it will be a part of the permanent collection.