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Heavy rains yield big dinosaur fossil find in US

Scientists say they have excavated Maryland's largest dinosaur fossil find in five years, a football-sized bone weighing between two and three pounds.
/ Source: The Associated Press

Scientists say they have excavated Maryland's largest dinosaur fossil find in five years, a football-sized bone weighing between two and three pounds.

Steve Jabo, a Smithsonian fossil expert, excavated the bone Wednesday, but it's too early to say what kind of dinosaur it belonged to.

The Baltimore Sun reports the fossil was poking from the clay Sept. 10 at Maryland's Dinosaur Park. Amateur paleontologist David Hacker spotted it while scouring the site for fossils exposed by heavy rains from remnants of recent Tropical Storm Lee.

Jabo said the fossil could be part of a leg bone of a plant-eating sauropod.

Dinosaur Park, in Prince George's County, has been yielding fossils for decades and scientists and amateur sleuths deliver any finds there to the Smithsonian Institution.