Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre, Marine fossil museum in Morden, Canada.
The Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre occupies the lower level of the Access Events Centre in Morden and holds Canada's largest collection of marine reptile fossils. Field excavations run along the Manitoba Escarpment in the Pembina Hills, and most specimens come from the Pembina and Millwood Members of the Pierre Shale. The centre also keeps numerous specimens of the Cretaceous squid Tusoteuthis longa, the northernmost known occurrence of these molluscs in North America's Cretaceous seas.
The museum began in 1971 as a local community center for Morden, initially focused on regional history. Over time it grew into a major research facility dedicated to studying and displaying late Cretaceous marine reptile fossils.
The centre's former name, the Morden and District Museum, survives in its 1971 founding, when a local mosasaur find on the Manitoba Escarpment started the collection. Today the museum hosts the bi-annual Manitoba Paleontology Symposium and runs summer fossil dig programs from May to October, and in 2015 it helped make the mosasaur Manitoba's official fossil emblem.
The museum occupies the lower level of the Access Events Centre in Morden. Fossil dig programs run each summer from May to October along the Manitoba Escarpment, and the centre also offers guided tours, school programs and summer day camps. The fossil collection has been digitized and posted online for researchers and students.
The museum houses Bruce, a mosasaur skeleton that ranks among the largest marine reptiles ever found. This nearly 43-foot (13-meter) specimen represents one of the most formidable predators that roamed the ancient seas.
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