Iguanodon sinkhole in Bernissart

There are still quite a few questions regarding the geological layers where the iguanodons were found. Those fossils were discovered in a "cran" or strange stone mass in the coal layers of the Carboniferous period, about 300 million years old. However, the iguanodons lived 175 million years later, in the Cretaceous. So that doesn't quite add up. One of the theories is that there was a sinkhole into which the carcasses of the iguanodons ended up (see figure). Interestingly, the official theory circulated in the Museum of Natural Sciences is that of the first museum director Edouard Dupont. This hypothesis suggests that the iguanodons had gotten stuck in a valley or ravine and became trapped in the ground where they died and sank into the mud. However, geologists could deduce from the geological layers that there was no valley there. What is even more noteworthy is that a lithological section from the time of the excavations clearly shows that the theory of museum director Edouard Dupont could not be true. Yet museum director Edouard Dupont ensured that this document was kept secret from the general public. Even stronger! The geological section of the iguanodon sinkhole created by Edouard Dupont presents a deliberately distorted picture of the stratigraphic reality in the Cran aux Iguanodons, aimed at supporting Edouard Dupont's erroneous hypothesis of the Vallée Bernissartienne. Jules Cornet published in 1898 a drawing based on original notes from engineer Sohier of the actual geological succession in the cran.

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eos - maandblad over wetenschap