SCIENCE DISCOVERY SPECIAL* : BONEBED

Rare East Coast Bonebed : Dinosaurs had been found there, but this dig turned up so many.

Fossils from animals including dinosaurs and stingrays more than 100 million years old have been uncovered in a Maryland park in what experts said could be the widest-ranging discovery of fossils of varied species on the East Coast of North America.

In April, a group of paleontologists and volunteers found a shin bone three foot long [ nearly one meter ] and identified as that of a theropod, a branch of the dinosaur family that includes carnivorous dinosaurs such as Tyranno-saurus rex.

Among subsequent discoveries were fossils of a Priconodon, a large, armored dinosaur ; an Ornithomimoid, an ostrichlike dinosaur ; a Deinonychus, a predatory birdlike dinosaur; and the oldest stingray found in North America.

The therapod, Acrocanthosaurus, was estimated to be about 38 feet long. The bonebed was uncovered during a dig experience program, in which members of the public look for fossils.

[ ''Bonebed'' is the designation for a concentration of bones from one or more species in a geologic layer. Such finds in America are more common in the West, where the uplifting of the Rocky Mountains brings fossils to the surface and arid conditions help expose them. ]

Fossils have been found in Dinosaur Park since the mid-1800s, when the site was an iron mine. [Rebecca Carballo]