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| - Darren H. Tanke (born 1960) is a Canadian technician at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, [[Alberta. An early mentor was Rene M Vandervelde (May 12, 1935-April 7, 2006) who took Tanke on fossil collecting trips in the Bearpaw Formation (marine fossils) south of Lethbridge, AB and in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation near Drumheller, AB (dinosaur bones). Vandervelde later went on to form a partnership in which crushed ammonites were converted into ammolite jewelery. In 1977-79, Tanke volunteered at the University of Calgary on weekends with Dr. Michael C. Wilson. There Tanke prepared, identified, and catalogued American Bison [Bison bison] bones he had collected from a Buffalo jump site he had found in today's Fish Creek Provincial Park in Calgary, Alberta. At the same t
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| - Darren H. Tanke (born 1960) is a Canadian technician at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, [[Alberta. An early mentor was Rene M Vandervelde (May 12, 1935-April 7, 2006) who took Tanke on fossil collecting trips in the Bearpaw Formation (marine fossils) south of Lethbridge, AB and in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation near Drumheller, AB (dinosaur bones). Vandervelde later went on to form a partnership in which crushed ammonites were converted into ammolite jewelery. In 1977-79, Tanke volunteered at the University of Calgary on weekends with Dr. Michael C. Wilson. There Tanke prepared, identified, and catalogued American Bison [Bison bison] bones he had collected from a Buffalo jump site he had found in today's Fish Creek Provincial Park in Calgary, Alberta. At the same time, in high school, Tanke was making Albertan kiln-fired clay ceratopsian skulls and skeletons in his art class, thus sealing his interest and passion for ceratopsian dinosaurs. In 1979, Tanke began working for Philip J. Currie in the paleontology department of the Provincial Museum of Alberta, originally as a field volunteer. From 1979 until 2005 (when Dr. Currie left the Tyrrell to become a professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton) Tanke worked as a lab and field technician, a job he still holds today. At the museum he is one of two senior technicians in the Preparation Lab with the formal title of Technician II. He does not hold any formal post-secondary degrees, but is active in research and numerous writing projects, often in conjunction with vertebrate paleontology students whom he actively supports and established academia. Senior editor of the 2001 book Mesozoic Vertebrate Life: New Research Inspired by the Paleontology of Philip J. Currie, Tanke appeared in the 1998 documentary film Dinosaur Park, and the 1993 educational film Messages in Stone. He also appeared in the 1994 Paleoworld episode "Dino Docs" which highlighted the field of dinosaur paleopathology. He has been interviewed several times for the Canada-wide CBC radio science program "Quirks and Quarks". Tanke has authored papers on dinosaurs and dinosaur paleopathology; his recent work includes preparation of Pachyrhinosaurus fossils. He worked on a large monograph describing a new species (Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai), with senior co-authors Philip J. Currie and Wann Langston Jr. Most of the material described therein was prepared by him. This monograph, 21+ years in the making, was released at Grande Prairie Regional College on October 1, 2008. This publication describes skull material from the extremely rich Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai bonebed on Pipestone Creek, southwest of Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada. Also with this publication are two other papers, one describing the site taphonomy and quarry map and another paper describing the endocast and brain structure of P. lakustai. Tanke is presently the longest serving employee with the Royal Tyrrell Museum. On August 7, 2008 at the 33rd International Geological Congress meetings in Oslo, Norway, he was made a member of INHIGEO (International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences). He is also a member of the PSP (Paleontological Society of the Peace; Grande Prairie, Alberta) and the APS (Alberta Palaeontological Society), where he regularly gives oral and poster presentations at their annual symposia in Calgary. The Cenomanian (early Late Cretaceous) marine bird Pasquiaornis tankei (Tokaryk, Cumbaa and Storer, 1997) from Carrot River, Saskatchewan, Canada was named in Tanke's honor.
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