Joseph Burr Tyrrell

Joseph Burr Tyrrell was a Canadian geologist and cartographer born November 1, 1858, in Weston, Ontario, who died August 26, 1957, in Toronto, at age 98, and who joined the Geological Survey of Canada in 1880 before later working as a mining consultant and, from 1926, as manager of the Kirkland Lake Gold Mine. He is renowned for discovering dinosaur bones of Albertosaurus sarcophagus in the Alberta badlands near Drumheller in 1884, led northern expeditions across the Canadian Barren Lands in 1893 and 1894, and published works on the explorations of David Thompson and on placer mining. He received the Back Award in 1896, the Murchison Medal in 1918, the Flavelle Medal in 1933, and the Wollaston Medal in 1947; the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta, is named in his honor.