Dinosaur Provincial Park, located in Alberta, Canada, is one of the grand natural locales in the world. It has also produced an abundance of dinosaur fossils, including specimens from every known group of dinosaurs from the Cretaceous period.

This book, published in celebration of the site’s 50th anniversary, is the first scientific overview of the park, its flora and fauna, its major fossil discoveries, and its ecology. Philip J. Currie and Eva B. Koppelhus, along with a team of 32 other scientists, present a comprehensive synthesis of information. Chapters include studies of the park’s geology, paleoecology, bonebeds, and taphonomic modes. Other chapters summarize the palynomorphs, mollusks, fishes, lissamphibians, crocodylians, and pterosaurs, among other extinct denizens of the park. And, of course, there are studies of the major dinosaur and mammal discoveries at the site.

A special color insert features life reconstructions of the Park’s animals by some of the world’s finest paleo-artists. The book also includes a CD-ROM with additional data and photographs.

This comprehensive history of a remarkable window into the history of the earth will be required reading for everyone interested in the life of the past.

Philip J. Currie is Curator of Dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. He is co-editor (with Eva B. Koppelhus) of Feathered Dragons: Studies on the Transition from Dinosaurs to Birds (IUP, 2004). He lives in Drumheller, Alberta.

Eva B. Koppelhus is an adjunct research scientist at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. She lives in Drumheller, Alberta.