Casper the Friendly Conference

 The first week of June Ray Jones, Marvin Evans, Bill Heffner and I headed for Casper, Wyoming and the Tate College. They hosted the second annual conference for fossil preparators. The conference was held in the Tate Museum, a relatively new facility on campus complete with lab area, classroom facilities and a small display area with some very interesting displays. The staff is very friendly and professional and we had a great time.

 Friday, demonstrations were given on molding and casting, and on fossil preparation techniques. In the molding and casting demonstration we used Leggos™ to create the form around the fossil we were molding. Bill and Marvin worked on a therizinosaur ungal and Ray molded a phalanx. Because more people attended the conference than originally planned, this process went slower than expected. The pouring of the molds also went slower and consequently we were unable to pour our casts until the next day. The Leggos™ worked great and we are hoping to acquire some for our own molding and casting purposes here at CEU.

On Saturday, we heard several talks. Some were on fossil excavation in the field and others were on preparation in the lab using various chemicals and techniques. All were very informative. For lunch we were treated to a barbecue. It was great being able to discuss with our fellow preparators problems, solutions and techniques and also to share fun stories about our successes and other situations.

 Sunday we headed back. The road led us past Devil’s Gate and Martin’s Cove, a historic site. During the 1800’s many pioneers and westward travelers passed through this area. Some giving their lives in pursuit of their dreams. This area is beautiful during the warmer months but during the fall, winter and spring, this area can become a death trap and did for some.

The four of us had a great time and we brought back some good information and hope to be able to incorporate some of the ideas we heard about at the conference. Thanks to the staff at Tate for a great conference!

Vacation Time: Bryce, Zions and Red Canyon

It’s great to live in a state with such great natural wonders. Because of the economy, we decided to shorten our vacation and stay closer to home this year. We have done this vacation before and enjoyed it very much and this time, we took three of our grandchildren with us. My good wife Kim did the vast amount of preparing for this trip since I was off on a paleo conference in Casper, Wyoming. (will blog about this later)

We like to stay just outside of Zions with our trailer where we can get full hook-ups and then do day trips to the various sites around the area. As many times as we have done this, we still have yet to see all the wonders this area of Utah possesses.

Bryce Canyon National Park is in the Clarion Formation. It was deposited by lakes and streams that would dry up periodically. The sediment is a mudstone with beautiful reds, oranges, whites and their beauty changes throughout the day with the angle of the light that shines on them. This is a very soft formation and erodes easily and this has created the various geologic forms of the park. Unless you do one of the many hikes down into the park, you will only see the tops of these formations. We did two of the hikes down into the park.

Zions National Park is in the formations under Bryce Canyon namely Navajo Sandstone and Wingate. These formations are much harder and create huge sheer cliffs. Because of the popularity of Zions the park has initiated a shuttle service which works great. We visited the lower Emerald Pool and the Weeping Wall along with riding the shuttle the entire length of the canyon. In both Bryce and Zions some of the local residents posed for pictures.

A normally overlooked area is Red Canyon that many visitors pass through on their way to Bryce. It is comprised of the Clarion Formation and looks similar to Bryce Canyon. We stopped at the visitors center and hiked one of the short trails. We hope next time we can visit this area in more depth.

All in all we all enjoyed the wonders of nature, the fresh air and getting away!

Zion's National Park Photos

Bryce Canyon National Park

Red Canyon Photos

Ruby's Photos

Fluorescent Minerals

As I mentioned in a previous blog, we have been working on a new fluorescent minerals display for the museum. IT IS NOW FINISHED!!! I hope if any of my readers are passing through Price, they will come and see it. I’ve enclosed some photos of its construction from start to end.

Christine Trease cut the signs for the display at no charge on her personal vinyl cutter and Lloyd Logan, or Director of Education, gave them a personalized touch to top off the display with style.

The architect of our museum did not believe we needed a freight elevator. This photo shows that they did put a second story door in the building so we could use a fork lift and that’s how we managed to move the two cases we needed for the display upstairs.

With the help of one of the local electricians, we were able to wire the display to a timer. The visitor just pushes a button and the white light turns off and the fluorescent lights turn on and excite the minerals. They stay on for about a minute and then turn off and the white light comes back on. I have installed a black light in the room so even the visitors can fluoresce.

For three weeks I had been working on the new fluorescent mineral display, I needed a break. So Monday, May 11^th Bill, Barb, Sage and I headed for the Mussentuchit area south of I70.

We checked out a site Bill and I found last year. I wanted to know if it was worth applying for a permit. So we excavated a test pit. We recovered several eolambia bones and I will be applying for an excavation permit in the near future.

We camped out at our usual camp site and as usual the wind blew most of the time. Barb being the clean person she is had problems with the dust, especially when she found a generous coating on her sleeping bag the next day.

Tuesday, we went back to our old site, EO2. We have been excavating here since 1999. When we left it last year, I did not have great hopes of finding much. I thought we could remove the remaining bones and the quarry would be finished. But as happens so often, we found the bone layer was just deposited in a different direction and it looks like we will be digging there for a while longer. I have included some photos of the site itself and of part of the deposit.

That evening, Barb and I visited a favorite rock hounding site of ours. We had the museum’s portable fluorescent light. We had a fun time checking out the colors of the rocks as they fluoresced when we noticed a very bright greenish glow. We checked it out and found it was a scorpion and over the next little while, found many other scorpions of varying sizes. After the first dozen or so, Barb stopped screaming and actually thought they were interesting.

Wednesday, the wind was still blowing, however the temperature had dropped several degrees and it was quite chilly. Talking it over with Barb and Bill we decided to try to continue our excavations at EO2 in spite of the weather. We were partially sheltered while we were excavating but the morning shade we enjoy on hot days kept us cooler than we wanted. We were able to remove several bones before we finally gave up, closed up the quarry, broke camp and headed home.

Thursday, when I arrived at the museum I found that some of the staff had helped me out with the fluorescent mineral display and the display was progressing very well. We spent the day continuing to arrange minerals and tweak the interpretation. This continued into Friday when we attached the interpretation to the back panel.

We have wired the display so that when the button is pushed, the white light turns off and the fluorescent lights turn on. They stay on for about 50 seconds and then they turn off and the white light comes back on. We have two cases. One with minerals from out of the state and the other case is filled with fluorescent minerals from the state of Utah.

Also on Thursday, Ken Carpenter and a couple of his volunteers stopped by to look at our collections. We spent a few hours checking out Eolambia, Gastonia, Animantarx and Peloroplites bones. We are working with Rob Gaston on a mount of Peloroplites and Ken helped with the positioning of the armor around the neck.

Friday evening I went camping with my grandson and several others. I took our portable fluorescent light along and that night I checked out the local rocks and found some of them to be very beautiful. I asked some of the others if they would like to do a night hike with me and several tagged along. While looking at the minerals, we discovered some scorpions that fluoresced very well. I have included one of the photos. It is a bit blurry but my camera was having trouble with the fluorescent light.

Saturday, my friends and I joined our wives and others for a tour of Nine Mile Canyon lead by Tom McCourt. Tom has lived in the area all of his life and has spent many, many days exploring the rock art and archaeological sites of Nine Mile. His knowledge of the canyon’s history and prehistoric treasures is second to none.

I have included some photos of some of the fantastic rock art.

And one photo of a large rock frog that overlooks Cottonwood Canyon.

It has been a busy but fun week!

Turkeys on the Loose!

I’ve been trapped in the museum most of the time over the past two weeks working on a new fluorescent mineral display for the museum. However, I did manage to sneak away last Wednesday April 22nd.

Bill and I and Sage explored a road we found our last time out. It’s east of Clawson and winds around in the Cedar Mountain and Morrison formations. I believe we found the northern edge of the Mussentuchit member of the Cedar Mountain Formation. The Ruby Ranch member is becoming quite thick in this area.

For the first time, we found a flock of turkeys on one of the highest points in the area. I had never seen wild turkeys in the desert before and thought they lived in wetter climates. But there they were watching us drive along. So, of course, I had to take some pictures.

And here’s some more spring flowers.

Hopefully, this turkey will be able to escape to the wilds soon.

Spring Is Fun

The weather was looking good so we headed back out into the field last week. Tuesday, we had some GPS coordinates given to us by our friend Dr. Jim Kirkland. A week before, Jim had been on a field trip with some UFOP (Utah Friends Of Paleontology) members and they located some bone in the Mancos shale. Jim identified it as plesiosaur and was kind enough to give us the location.

We followed the GPS coordinates and found the bones exactly where they were supposed to be. Looking at the bones, we determined that there were at least two vertebrae and fragments of other bones imbedded in some concretions.

We collected them and recorded the site and have them in the lab. They will be a challenge to prepare out. In the surrounding area, there were several small ammonites and other aquatic fossils.

We collected a few samples of these also.

After lunch, we headed for an area near Cedar Mountain in the Dakota Formation. A few years ago, Donnette Tuttle, a resident of Emery County, showed me some two-toed tracks in the Dakota Formation and I was trying to relocate them. This will be the third try but fortunately, in looking back over the past field records, I located the GPS coordinates and was confident we could locate them this time.

We found them and they are as interesting as I remember. They look similar to a hoof print, but I believe instead they are a two-toed track. A couple of years ago, I located some tracks near PR2 (Price River 2 Quarry) and one of the tracks looks to be just like these two-toed tracks so we know of two locations of these tracks. I took a new GPS reading using the datum of NAD83. This datum is more widely used than the old NAD27.

While looking for the tracks, we located several petrified logs imbedded in the Dakota. These will be next to impossible to remove so we collected pieces for identification and left the remainder of the logs in place.

The spring run-off had collected in pools. I found these to be interesting. Some of them contained moss and other short-lived organisms.

Our outdoor companion Sage, being half lab, enjoyed a cool dip in some of the pools.

Wednesday at the lab, our friends from DinoLab brought us a load of mammoth cast bones. Jim Madsen (founder of DinoLab) and his son Chris came down with their crew. I called Don Burge and told him his friend Jim was here so he came over for a visit.

We spent a short time going through some of the collections and reminiscing about old times.

The next day, Thursday, we went back out into the field. A new volunteer to the museum, Charlie Johnston, had located some bones in the Morrison east of Castle Dale and since he will be heading back to Alaska this week, he wanted to show us before he left. The site is at the top of a ridge. The bones are of a sauropod and were in good condition for weathering on the surface.

Unfortunately the source was at the top of a hill leading me to believe there were no undisturbed bones to be excavated.

The spring flowers are coming out and I have enjoyed photographing a few. I hope I can get back out in the field soon.

Back in the Field Again

Wow, the weather’s finally turning great and of course I have got cabin fever along with several of the museum volunteers and staff so we headed out in the field last Tuesday and Wednesday to check up on some of our old sites and see if we could find some new ones. At one of the turtle sites we found last year, I was showing some of the crew turtle shell and how to recognize it when Clark Warren, asked if I was interested in finding teeth at which point he picks up a 4 centimeter long crock tooth in great condition! He just likes to show off some times.

We were surveying in the Cedar Mountain Formation and found a lot of tempskya. I always enjoy finding tempskya but since it was so plentiful in that area, I only recorded the larger concentrations.

Clark, however, found a petrified wood site. This is different from tempskya in that we could see growth rings in the fossil pieces. This type of wood is scarce, so we recorded the site and collected some of the wood for thin sections and identification.

The next day, Wednesday, we visited the site of a petrified log that was found last year. The log is heavily fractured however we are going to try to jacket part of it and remove it to the lab. We want to see a cross section of the whole log. Its growth pattern is different from anything we at the museum are familiar with. We continued surveying north of the log. Bill and Jeff located a site that we recorded. During the recording process we found egg shell along with the dinosaur bone fragments.

Jeff had been sitting on the area with the egg shell so this site was dubbed Jeff’s Hatchery.

Ray Jones had been shown a new site by one of his friends and he in turn, showed us. The site is located in the bottom of a wash uncovered by water action and has been worn away by consequent rainstorms. The bone is in hard sandstone. Some has been weathered out but three bones are visible. This would be a difficult site to excavate but it is fun to see bones the way they have been naturally preserved.

Thursday I was back at the lab. We had a visiting paleontologist, Dr. Jim Kirkland, the Utah Paleontologist. He has been involved with the research on therizinosaurs and was interested in what we have uncovered at the Swarez Site. He also believes that we have a troodon mixed in with our therizinosaur. Unfortunately, troodon and therizinosaur are similar in size and the preservation of some of the Swarez bones is not always good making the distinction between the two difficult. It’s always fun to look over collections and get a fresh opinion on what’s what. Dr. Kirkland has a great wealth of knowledge and I enjoy talking with him and learning from him. http://geology.utah.gov/utahgeo/dinofossil/falcarius/index.htm

On the fun side, it’s pinewood derby time again and my grandson Tyler and I have been working on our pinewood derby cars.