Dinosaur Provincial Park

Dinosaur Provincial Park lies in the valley of the Red Deer River, in south-eastern Alberta, and was one of the first Canadian properties inscribed on the World Heritage List, in 1979, under geological and scenic criteria. Its landscape is badlands: a relief of gullies, hoodoos and ravines carved into soft sediment by post-glacial erosion, which cuts abruptly into the surrounding prairie and lays the strata bare.

Those strata, of the Dinosaur Park Formation and associated units, belong to the Late Cretaceous, some 75 million years ago, when the area was a warm, humid coastal plain beside the Western Interior Seaway. The combination of rapid sedimentation and present-day erosion has made the park one of the richest dinosaur sites in the world: dozens of species have been identified, among them hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, ankylosaurs and theropods, and hundreds of specimens taken from here are displayed in museums across the planet. The record is not confined to dinosaurs: it also includes fish, turtles, crocodiles, primitive mammals and an abundant fossil flora, which makes it possible to reconstruct the complete ecosystem and not merely its most striking vertebrates.

Alongside its palaeontological value, the park protects a well-preserved sample of badlands ecosystems and of the cottonwood riparian woodland of the Red Deer, scarce habitats in the Canadian prairies. Much of the territory is classed as a nature preserve with restricted access, and the fossil sites can be visited only on guided excursions; the rest is walked on marked trails. Management rests with Alberta Parks.