by Fred Bervoets
Iguanodon bernissartensis is named after the small, in origin miners village, Bernissart, in South-West Belgium near the French border, were fossil remains of I. bernissartenis and I. atherfieldenis were discovered in 1878. During that spring the coal mine was being actively worked and a series of new galleries were being excavated. At a depth of 322 meters a new gallery was opened in the so called \"Fosse Sainte Barbe\" a level which coincided with that of the \"Luronne\" coal seam.
At the end of February miners working on the new gallery bounced upon an extremely irregular region, consisting of broken blocks of limestone and coal, intermingled with sands and marls. In this mining area small geological faults were a normal appearance and were called \"Crans\", but instead re-entering limestone strata, as expected the gallery passed into an area of more regularly stratified marl and sands.
The pit engineer together with the pit manager Gustave Fagès, investigated the gallery in order to investigate the possibility to produce coal from this pit. During this investigation several unusual objects, first thought to be fragments of fossilied wood, were found. Objects like this were already reported by miners as L.F. de Pauw wrote in 1902: \"At a certain point one of the minors, Jules Créteur found many bones impregnated with pyrite which at first has seen by all the men of the team for tree trunks filled with gold\"
After several specimens were carried to the surface for further examination, Fagès went back with a small group of miners to see if more specimens could be found. Some of the specimens were sent to the geologist F.-L. Cornet who, unable to indentify them, forwarded the specimens to P.J. van Beneden, anatomist at the University of Leuven.
In the same time large quantities of fossils were discovered at Bernissart. The chief mining engineer of the province Gustave Arnould, who was working on a detailed report [Arnould, G. 1878. Bassin houiller du couchant de Mons - mèmoire historique et descriptf] on the coal-bearing strata of the Mons area, was notified and contacted Edouard Dupont, Director of the Musée Royal d\'Histoire Naturelle in Brussels by sending a urgent telegram on April 12th 1878 writing: \" Significant discovery of bones in the Berinssart coal mines, break up by pyrite to send Depauw to arrive tomorrow station Mons eight hours morning Y will be urgent .Gustave\"
De Pauw made a short visit to Bernissart and then tried to develop a method to limit the tendency of these fossils to crumble in air and also to pyritise rapidly. It was Van Beneden who announched the discovery of the fossils to a meeting of the Royal Academy of Science held on the 7th of May 1878. [Van Beneden, P.J. (1878) Sur la découverte de reptiles fossiles gigantesques dans la charbonnage de Bernissart, près de Péruwelz. Bull. Acad. Sci. Belge, (2) XLV: 578-579] Some of the teeth could be indentified as Iguanodon as Van Beneden wrote on page 579: \"Some teeth whose enamel is preserved makeus believe it comes from Iguanodon\". The dinosaurs were named Iguanodon bernissartensis by G.A. Boulanger (as cited in Van Beneden, 1881).
On the 15th of May after the board of directors of the mine offered the fossils to the state, new excavations under the direction of De Pauw started to take place. These excavations went on untill August, then a tremor trapped De Pauw and his team for several hours underground.
As a result of the tremor flood waters started to seep into the mine and on October the 22th all work had to stop after the galleries were completely submerged. After the galleries were re-opened excavations continued uninterrupted from May 1879 until 1881, by this time a second gallery at 356 meters had been opened, which produced several more skeletons from a similar, butless extensive fissure. Due to a lack of space to store the enormous numbers of recovered fossils the excavations were suspended in 1881, the galleries awaiting further excavations were kept open by maintaining water pumps and ventilators.
Even after a new museum was build in 1902 the excavations did not continue until the outbreak of the first World War when Belgium was occupated by German forces. During the occupation excavations under the direction of German paleontologist Otto Jeakel started, in order to collect new fossils for the Berlin Museum. A new gallery between the ones at 322 and 356 meter was opened.
However, before Jeakel had reached the fossiliferous marl Allied forces had liberated Belgium. During the following decade all attempts to renew the excavations failed due to a lack of financial support and even the pomping equipments were removed from the galleries which led to the eventual closure of the pit.The Bernissart marls which were of Lower Cretaceous age were found to contain a vast number of fossils, representing the principal elements of a flora and fauna which has flourished some 120 million years ago. The discoveries of Iguanodon bernissartensis and Iguanodon atherfieldensis marked the second of two significant phases of development in the study of the dinosaurs, these were the first complete dinosaur skeletons ever discovered and still remain one of the greatest accumulations of a single taxon of dinosaur. I. bernissatensis is represented by a unique collection of twenty-four more or less complete, articulated skeletons, as well as several partly preserved individuals. I. atherfieldensis was found among the skeletons of I. bernissartensis. It is represented by a complete skeleton and is a smaller and more delicate species than I. bernissartensis. I. atherfieldensis have also been found in England (Norman, 1986). A third species has also been named from the United States I.lakotaensis.
Today, most of these Bernissart specimens are on display at the Royal Institute of Natural Science in Brussel, Belgium. Many of them are standing, mounted side by side within an enourmous glass cage. While others have been left in their in their original poses, lying on their sides as found entombed in the coal mine.
This astouning array of Iguanodon skeletons remains the most impressive display of a single taxon of dinosaur anywhere in the world.
References
Norman, D.B. (1980). On the Ornithischian Dinosaur Iguanodon bernissartensis from the Lower Cretaceous of Bernissart (Belgium), Memoire No. 178 L\'Institut Royal des Scienes Naturelles de Belgique, Bruxelles/Brussel
Forster, C.A. (1997). Iguanodontidae. In Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs (J.Currie and K.Padian, Eds.), pp.359-361 Academic Press, San Diego, California/London, UK
Iguanodon bernissartensis is named after the small, in origin miners village, Bernissart, in South-West Belgium near the French border, were fossil remains of I. bernissartenis and I. atherfieldenis were discovered in 1878. During that spring the coal mine was being actively worked and a series of new galleries were being excavated. At a depth of 322 meters a new gallery was opened in the so called \"Fosse Sainte Barbe\" a level which coincided with that of the \"Luronne\" coal seam.
At the end of February miners working on the new gallery bounced upon an extremely irregular region, consisting of broken blocks of limestone and coal, intermingled with sands and marls. In this mining area small geological faults were a normal appearance and were called \"Crans\", but instead re-entering limestone strata, as expected the gallery passed into an area of more regularly stratified marl and sands.
The pit engineer together with the pit manager Gustave Fagès, investigated the gallery in order to investigate the possibility to produce coal from this pit. During this investigation several unusual objects, first thought to be fragments of fossilied wood, were found. Objects like this were already reported by miners as L.F. de Pauw wrote in 1902: \"At a certain point one of the minors, Jules Créteur found many bones impregnated with pyrite which at first has seen by all the men of the team for tree trunks filled with gold\"
After several specimens were carried to the surface for further examination, Fagès went back with a small group of miners to see if more specimens could be found. Some of the specimens were sent to the geologist F.-L. Cornet who, unable to indentify them, forwarded the specimens to P.J. van Beneden, anatomist at the University of Leuven.
In the same time large quantities of fossils were discovered at Bernissart. The chief mining engineer of the province Gustave Arnould, who was working on a detailed report [Arnould, G. 1878. Bassin houiller du couchant de Mons - mèmoire historique et descriptf] on the coal-bearing strata of the Mons area, was notified and contacted Edouard Dupont, Director of the Musée Royal d\'Histoire Naturelle in Brussels by sending a urgent telegram on April 12th 1878 writing: \" Significant discovery of bones in the Berinssart coal mines, break up by pyrite to send Depauw to arrive tomorrow station Mons eight hours morning Y will be urgent .Gustave\"
De Pauw made a short visit to Bernissart and then tried to develop a method to limit the tendency of these fossils to crumble in air and also to pyritise rapidly. It was Van Beneden who announched the discovery of the fossils to a meeting of the Royal Academy of Science held on the 7th of May 1878. [Van Beneden, P.J. (1878) Sur la découverte de reptiles fossiles gigantesques dans la charbonnage de Bernissart, près de Péruwelz. Bull. Acad. Sci. Belge, (2) XLV: 578-579] Some of the teeth could be indentified as Iguanodon as Van Beneden wrote on page 579: \"Some teeth whose enamel is preserved makeus believe it comes from Iguanodon\". The dinosaurs were named Iguanodon bernissartensis by G.A. Boulanger (as cited in Van Beneden, 1881).
On the 15th of May after the board of directors of the mine offered the fossils to the state, new excavations under the direction of De Pauw started to take place. These excavations went on untill August, then a tremor trapped De Pauw and his team for several hours underground.
As a result of the tremor flood waters started to seep into the mine and on October the 22th all work had to stop after the galleries were completely submerged. After the galleries were re-opened excavations continued uninterrupted from May 1879 until 1881, by this time a second gallery at 356 meters had been opened, which produced several more skeletons from a similar, butless extensive fissure. Due to a lack of space to store the enormous numbers of recovered fossils the excavations were suspended in 1881, the galleries awaiting further excavations were kept open by maintaining water pumps and ventilators.
Even after a new museum was build in 1902 the excavations did not continue until the outbreak of the first World War when Belgium was occupated by German forces. During the occupation excavations under the direction of German paleontologist Otto Jeakel started, in order to collect new fossils for the Berlin Museum. A new gallery between the ones at 322 and 356 meter was opened.
However, before Jeakel had reached the fossiliferous marl Allied forces had liberated Belgium. During the following decade all attempts to renew the excavations failed due to a lack of financial support and even the pomping equipments were removed from the galleries which led to the eventual closure of the pit.The Bernissart marls which were of Lower Cretaceous age were found to contain a vast number of fossils, representing the principal elements of a flora and fauna which has flourished some 120 million years ago. The discoveries of Iguanodon bernissartensis and Iguanodon atherfieldensis marked the second of two significant phases of development in the study of the dinosaurs, these were the first complete dinosaur skeletons ever discovered and still remain one of the greatest accumulations of a single taxon of dinosaur. I. bernissatensis is represented by a unique collection of twenty-four more or less complete, articulated skeletons, as well as several partly preserved individuals. I. atherfieldensis was found among the skeletons of I. bernissartensis. It is represented by a complete skeleton and is a smaller and more delicate species than I. bernissartensis. I. atherfieldensis have also been found in England (Norman, 1986). A third species has also been named from the United States I.lakotaensis.
Today, most of these Bernissart specimens are on display at the Royal Institute of Natural Science in Brussel, Belgium. Many of them are standing, mounted side by side within an enourmous glass cage. While others have been left in their in their original poses, lying on their sides as found entombed in the coal mine.
This astouning array of Iguanodon skeletons remains the most impressive display of a single taxon of dinosaur anywhere in the world.
References
Norman, D.B. (1980). On the Ornithischian Dinosaur Iguanodon bernissartensis from the Lower Cretaceous of Bernissart (Belgium), Memoire No. 178 L\'Institut Royal des Scienes Naturelles de Belgique, Bruxelles/Brussel
Forster, C.A. (1997). Iguanodontidae. In Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs (J.Currie and K.Padian, Eds.), pp.359-361 Academic Press, San Diego, California/London, UK
