Paleo Dude

SVP in Pittsburgh

2010-10-29T13:31:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Pittsburgh late afternoon Saturday October 9^th. The weather was great and after finding my way to the baggage area I only had a short wait till I met with Ken and his wife Yvonne. They rented a car. Yvonne is a native of Pittsburgh so she was the designated driver.

Pittsburgh is located among hills, covered with lush vegetation. Yvonne was happy to be back and she pointed out to me the beautiful vegetation. I mentioned to her that the vegetation was covering all the cool fossils.

Thanks to Yvonne’s knowledge of the road system we arrived at the hotel and settled in for the duration of our stay. The hotel was a short walk from the convention center. I enjoyed my short walks and by varying my route a little I was able to see a little more of the area. My second day I notice this walkway flanked by water falls on each side. It is the entrance way to the soon to be completed waterfront park along the bank of the Allegheny River. (Unlike the psudo rivers we have in Utah, Pittsburgh has real rivers.)

Sunday Evening was the “Welcome Reception” at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Yvonne worked at the museum a few years ago and her and Ken coauthored a paper on a camptosaur from the Carnegie collections.

At the entrance to the dinosaur display is a very nice prep lab visible through large glass windows. In the dinosaur hall, I enjoyed the “action posed” mounts set in dioramas. The mounts were actual fossilized bone, with each individual bone cradled in its own individual section of the armature.

Another area I enjoyed was the Mineral displays.

Most of my time during my stay was spent listening to talks and checking out the posters. After being in my own little world most of the time, it is refreshing to see what others are doing and how modern technology is being used to learn more about the past. I was also able to meet a few new people and visit with friends I have not seen for a while.

At the preparators symposium were several good presentations, one I found informative was on how to create permanent jackets (I call them cradles) to support the fossils during storage and enable researchers to study the fossils too. The jackets were designed so a researcher could remove the top section of the jacket and when needed the top could be replaced and then the jacket turned over and the other side of the jacket could be removed. This design gave support to the fossil at all times while giving access for study.

At one of the other sessions a paper was presented on determining the color of fossil feathers. Colors apparently have textures that can be seen under an electron microscope, each color a different texture that can be preserved in the fossil. The exception is iridescent colors. They do not have a distinctive texture, probably because they are several colors.

As with all good times it came to an end. I did not see all I would have liked, maybe someday I will be able to return.

Goose Neck Dinosaur

2010-05-17T08:27:00.000-07:00

Photo Credit John Bird

For the past few months we have been planning an excavation of a partially articulated Allosaur found late November of 2009. The site is located ten miles east from Castle Dale, Utah. Castle Dale is the county seat of Emery County and if you are ever in the area swing by the Museum of the San Rafael. It is a stop worth making.

Last November we were checking out a bone deposit in a Jurassic age channel sandstone. Channel sandstones were laid down by streams and rivers and can contain the remains of plants and/or animals that were deposited in the stream when it was active. This site contains the partial remains of a sauropod. The fossil bones are badly weathered so that is as good as my field I.D. gets on this one.

Photo Credit John Bird

The sun was still high and the weather nice for the end of November so we split up and started surveying the area to see what we could find. Bill spotted three small bones sticking up out of the ground and called me over. Using my pocketknife I started investigating and within about 20 minutes had 6 articulated vertebra exposed. Yes, I was a little excited. Articulated dinosaurs are very rare around here, so even just six vertebrae, all lined up together was pretty cool. By then the temperature was beginning to drop so we covered the vertebra up and decided to come back a couple days later.

Photo Credit John Bird

The next trip out was in December. We quickly uncovered the original six vertebrae. Bill began working to the right and I worked to the left. We were both amazed at what we found. The verts kept going and going and going, until we had 27 articulated verts. The verts were bent back on themselves just like a goose does when it sleeps, so it was named the Goose Neck Site. This was all really cool, but our surface permit would no longer cover what needed to be done to jacket and remove the vertebrae.

Photo Credit John Bird

That’s when I called the BLM and explained the situation. We had a partially articulated dinosaur near a main road. They responded quickly and we continued trying to work around the verts to jacket them. Additional bones complicated the situation and then the snow arrived. I made the decision to stop work and wait for better conditions.

In January the idea to open the site up to public view was suggested and after some thought it was decided to invite the public, after all, the site was too close to the road to keep it a secret. Plans were made, equipment was prepared, and clearances and permits were obtained. This was a cooperative effort involving people from the CEU Prehistoric Museum, the BLM, CC Travel and Volunteers from Carbon and Emery Counties.

Photo Credit Jim Wedlock

Monday May 3^rd we established pathways and a few barriers to protect the bones. Ramal Jones from Castle Dale used his scintillation counter to help us determine the extent of the deposit. We then started expanding the quarry and uncovering the articulated vertebrae.

Tuesday May 4^th was media day and what a day. News crews from radio stations, television stations and newspapers were interviewing everyone present. Representatives from the BLM were present including their state paleontologist Dr. Scott Foss. The day was a great success thanks to a multitude of participants.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were spent uncovering more of the fossil bones and talking with the many visitors. The visitors were fantastic. They were excited, interested, friendly and when buckets needed emptying some pitched in and emptied buckets. Some allosaur teeth were found and everyone enjoyed examining them. We established various viewing areas around the site and all were well used.

Photo Credit John Bird

Saturday May 8^th was “Family Day in the Swell”. The archeologists set up information stations, for anyone interested in learning about the early inhabitants, at a couple of the rock art sites down Buckhorn Wash and we were still working on the Goose Neck dinosaurs. In addition many of the desert wildflowers were in bloom and the weather was just right. It was a great day to be out in the swell.

Photo Credit John Bird

Up to this point we had left “most” of the fossil bones in place so everyone who visited would be able to see the bones where we had found them. Saturday afternoon we began collecting and preparing the fossils for transport to Price. Jacketing of some of the fossils was done to protect them during travel. All of the fossils were mapped, numbered and recorded in the field journal. This work continued through Sunday.

Monday May 10^th only the large jacket containing the 27 articulated vertebrae was left. Several volunteers heeded our call for help and using our large stretch we were able to load the jacket onto a small trailer for the trip down the hill where we loaded it onto our larger trailer for the trip to the museum in Price. Derald Oliver from Castle Dale spent a few days at the site and when he heard us talking about how we could get the jacket down the hill he volunteered his small trailer and ATV. Special thanks to him, he made a hard job much easier.

Photo Credit Jim Wedlock

The large jacket is now in the museum and we will be working on the bones near the allosaur mount in the Hall of Paleontology. Visitors to the museum are welcome to talk with the preparators and check up on their progress as it is being prepared for study. I am hoping to find a long term spot to display these unique fossils.

A VERY SINCERE “THANKS” TO THE MANY PEOPLE WHO CONTRIBUTED TO THE SUCCESS OF THIS EVENT.

Note: For those interested we are close to having a new museum director/curator of paleontology. I am hopeful we will be announcing that persons name before the end of May.

Flat Stanley's Museum Adventure

2010-03-02T07:31:00.000-08:00

March 3, 2010

Wow! I have really lost track of time. It is hard to believe my last blog was six months ago. First things first. I would like to thank all those who have sent me comments. They are very much appreciated. I also want to thank my friend Dr. Jim Kirkland for correcting my spelling of Suarez. I apologize for the mistake and it has been corrected.

Since my last blog our museum has lost our director Dr Reese Barrick and our collections manager Jeff Bartlett. Just wanted to wish them both the best of luck. We are currently in the process of finding a new paleontologist/director.

A short time ago I received a letter from my granddaughter, Abby. She sent me a Flat Stanley. The story goes that Stanley was in the library one day when a row of shelves full of books fell on him and flattened him as thin as a sheet of paper. Stanley found this to be an interesting situation and it made it possible for him to travel through the mail.

In my work with the museum I meet many interesting people and I found Stanley to be someone interesting so I gave him a tour of our museum.

I started with the oldest first

The Dimetrodon lived in the time period before the dinosaurs called the Permian. He had two sets of teeth, one set you can see and the other set is in it’s throat.

This fossil horn coral also lived in the Permian and was collected from the cliffs located outside the entrance to Arches National Park.

Al the Allosaur was found at the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry (CLDQ) near Price. The Allosaur is Utah’s vertebrate fossil. Stanley’s left foot is stepping into the area of the skull where Al’s eye would have been.

Al’s claws are very sharp, but fortunately for Stanley, Al was not hungry.

Stanley enjoyed brushing the sand away from the skull of a Utahraptor.

Our alligator is always hungry. Stanley kept a safe distance from him. Every Friday at 4:00 p.m. is feeding time. Many visitors enjoy watching our animals feed.

The two Stegosaur plates and tail spike are from the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry (CLDQ).

Stanley learned that the process for making replicas is similar today as it was back in ancient Egyptian times.

Many years ago (even before your grandparents were born) an ocean covered the Eastern half of Utah. These fossils are examples of some of the animals that lived in that ocean

Gastonia and Animantax were prehistoric tanks. Armor covered their bodies to protect them from the predators. Stanley feels very safe among the armor.

The coal mines in the mountains near Price have many dinosaur tracks in the roof. Stanley is looking at four different kinds.

Stanley is looking at a picture of what a track looks like to the miners in the mine.

Stanley’s foot would leave a much smaller track than this track left by a duck billed dinosaur.

The Chasmosaur is a cousin to Triceritops.

Many alligator and crocodile fossils are found in the hills above Soldier Summit, Utah

Insects and bird tracks are also found with the crocodiles. This tells us there was a lot of streams and lakes in that area a long time ago.

This pot was found recently on U.S. Forest Service Land in Emery County

UV light is also called “black light”. Some rocks are prettier in the dark.

The ancient Americans would crush colored stones and us the powder mixed with liquid to color many things.

If you look close you can see the head of a clay doll in the cradle board.

Some ancient Americans lived in homes built one on top of the other, like condominiums.

More pottery designs

Stanley wondered if a turkey blanket was for people or turkeys?

This pit house is very different from Stanley’s home.

The Pilling Figurines shown here are the best collection of Fremont figurines ever found.

Hope the mammoth doesn’t kick Stanley too far.

Stanley landed right on the back of a Saber Tooth cat.

Saber Toothed cats and short faced bears became extinct shortly after man appeared in the area.

Stanley found out keeping the museum clean and nice for visitors is a hard job.

Dr. Renee Barlow, the museums archeologist, enjoyed talking with Stanley about her job studying how people lived a long time ago.

Stanley found some dinosaurs his size. These are small sculptures of dinosaurs that were discovered in Eastern Utah over the last few years.

The Utahraptor was discovered at the same time “Jurassic Park” was being filmed.

These are claws from a therezinosaur. this dinosaur was thought to only exist in China until it was found near Green River, Utah a few years ago.

Stanley is standing beside a tail vertebra from an ankylosaur. This ankylosaur would look something like a 30ft long horned lizard.

Stanley is comparing his foot to the toe of the ankylosaur.

Stanley and I had a lot of fun together. I want to thank Abby for sending him to me.

I hope you have enjoyed the tour.

I was unable to show Stanley everything in our museum. I invite all who can to visit us here in Price if you can.

P.S.

Please do not ride any of the animals.

Tracking Dinosaurs, ?? Maybe.

2009-09-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

The Dakota sandstone is located at the very top of the Cedar Mountain formation. It is the remnants of the shoreline as the inland sea rose during the mid part of the Cretaceous.

It is a sandstone/conglomerate mix and sometimes yields fossils of wood and some bone.

It is in this ancient shoreline one of the local residents from Emery County found some tracks.

They were originally thought to be hoof prints and they do resemble them. But this is the Cretaceous and as far as we know hooved animals did not exist during this time.

We believe them to be two-toed tracks of what, we don’t know. I am not aware of any two-toed skeletons having been found during the time of the dinosaurs. This is great, fun! I love finding new stuff. So, we decided to mold a few so we could share the fun.

Last Wednesday (9/14) Bill and I gathered us our supplies and visited the site. It is about 40 minutes away near Cedar Mountain. We had some soft rigid foam used by podiatrists for foot impressions and some silicone. We had no experience using the foam but thought this would be a good opportunity to try it. The silicone we have used on a couple occasions before and we have had good success with it.

cleaning out most of the tracks we chose two likely candidates to work on.

The pictures show how we pressed the foam into the tracks. We chose tracks with no undercuts and we were able to remove the foam without damaging the foam cast. Cleanup was easy, we just used a brush and the little bit of foam left on the rock turned to powder and blew away.

For the silicone we sprayed on a biodegradable release so the silicone would remove easily when set.

After applying the silicone we went back to our vehicle and ate lunch. When we returned the silicone had set up and it came out with ease.

After gathering up our equipment and cleaning the area we returned to the lab and poured plaster over our molds to test how well we did. The casts turned out well. Hopefully in the future I would like to map the tracks at this site and do a few more molds.

It’s a hard job but somebody has to do it.

End of Another Year at Suarez

2009-09-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

The smoke was thick in the air from forest fires west of us in Utah and in Southern California but Bill and I headed out to Suarez. We had a pubis that had been discovered on the previous trip that we needed to get out before we closed the quarry for the season. We thought maybe the smoke would dissipate before we reached Green River but it was still so thick that we could not see the mountains back of Green River.

When we reached the trailhead, the smoke was still thick and we hiked with our equipment up to the site, our lungs hurting a little from the smoke in the air. Fortunately, within the hour, the wind shifted and the smoke began to clear and the mountains were again visible and we could breathe.

We removed overburden from above the pubis and Bill began working around the fossil to enable us to jacket it for removal. I worked a couple of meters away. The bones in this area are very abundant. I refer to it as the spaghetti bowl. The bones overlap each other and are so close together it makes excavation very difficult. It’s like excavating spaghetti.

On our previous trip, I had found a very nice ilium to a therizinosaur and was trying to work around it so that I could remove it. In the process, I uncovered a couple dozen other fossil bones that we recorded and mapped before I was able to remove the ilium from its resting place. After all of this was removed I found a layer of armor from the nodosaur. These will have to wait until next year.

Earlier this year, we recovered a lower jaw from a therizinosaur. Several of the teeth were still in place. This is the largest jaw we have recovered from this site and I just thought you might like to see it. The teeth are spatulate in shape, very unusual for a theripod. This is one of the main reasons we believe this animal was an omnivore. Its claws are still very sharp and lethal so at least at this stage of their evolution they are thought to eat some meat as well as plants.

When we finished we covered the exposed bones with burlap and pulled some of the overburden onto the burlap. This will keep the quarry in good shape until we return next year. This year we have spent many a great night stargazing and at one time, we were able to see the space station and the shuttle before the shuttle was docked. The Milky Way is beautiful on moonless nights and we were able to see satellites, meteors, and planes as they go by.

We are looking forward to preparing out the specimens collected this year and further excavations and stargazing next year.

Uintathere Rescue

2009-08-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

I received an urgent phone call on my cell phone the morning of the 29^th of July. A Uintathere skull had been uncovered at a construction site in Colorado and they needed to get it out of the way quickly. They asked if I could bring a group over to excavate. I told them that I was just finishing up a dig at Swarez and that we could be there the next morning. So, Bill and I closed up the Swarez site and left for Price.

Bill and I left for Colorado early Thursday morning and arrived at the site at 10 am. Excavation was already underway and the equipment trailer had been hauled to the site. The Uintathere skull is in a sandstone concretion surrounded by softer sandstone. A turtle shell with bones and a skull were also preserved in the concretion. This is the first discovery of a Uintathere skull in this area and skulls from turtles are extremely rare making this a very important find.

We were fortunate to have heavy equipment in the area that we could call on to help with the excavation.

We used a small trackhoe to pull the matrix from around the concretion and expose it in preparation to be jacketed. This saved us many hours of work by hand. After the trackhoe had finished, we were able to undercut using an electric jackhammer and hand tools.

We used a hammer drill to honeycomb part of the concretion so it could be removed. This was to reduce the weight of the final jacket to make it easier to handle.

We then covered the exposed fossils with paper towels and moistened them with water to hold them in place. For the jacket, we used plaster of paris and burlap strips. Because this is a large jacket, we put on several layers. We let it dry and set up overnight and the next morning, with the help of a larger trackhoe, the jacket was rolled over and we were able to complete the jacket on the bottom side.

used the trackhoe to do a quick survey of the area. We found two more concretions with fossil bone from the Uintathere close by. One of these we jacketed and the other we collected as it was found.

Monday morning we loaded all the fossils and jackets on the flatbed trailer and left the area to the bulldozers. We had a great crew and the heavy equipment operators were great to work with. This find would not have been discovered without the cooperative efforts of all those involved. I am thankful for the opportunity to work on this dig.

Mothers and Sons at Suarez

2009-08-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

I feel I should apologize to the participants of this excavation since I told them I would have this up more than a week ago. However, I received an emergency call about a Uintathere that needed rescue over in Colorado (details in my next blog).

Monday morning (July 27, 2009) Bill, Sage and I loaded up our equipment and headed for Green River, Utah where we met up with two mothers and their sons; Toddy and her son Lee, and Jody and her son Jerimy.

Of course on our way to the quarry we made our usual stop at Crystal Geyser. It was making a few burps and belches but no eruption at this time. I was able to add to my collection of geyser photos.

We reached our camp just before lunch so we ate before going to the site. Last time we were at Suarez we left some of our tools and this time we only needed a few items, making the walk up the hill easier.

We cleared off the site and put the shades up. It wasn’t long before we were into excavation mode.

Much of the overburden had been removed on our previous excursion but even so, using hammers and screw drivers the bones were slow to show themselves. The first day we only found a half dozen bones. Unfortunately, one of our young paleontologists was not feeling well by evening.

I drove him and his mother to Green River so hopefully he could recover. They had a three day river trip coming up and they didn’t want to miss it. On the way out, I noticed the geyser was exciting for my two guests and we arrived in time for a few good photos. After some ice cream in Green River and finding a motel for Jerimy and his mother, I headed back to camp.

Tuesday, we headed back up to the site and found a few bones that we were able to record and map. Toddy and Lee needed to leave us after lunch to meet up with Jody and Jerimy. They were headed for Moab and a river trip.

Bill and I continued excavations the rest of the day and Wednesday morning. All-together we collected about 30 more fossil bones. Another fun and successful trip. On the way out the geyser was erupting again so Bill and I enjoyed watching another display of erupting water.

Digging With 4-Hers

2009-07-23T10:16:00.000-07:00

We had a crew of three 4-Hers and their chaperone join us last week, July 12^th through the 16^th at the Swarez Site near Green River. We met at the Museum of the San Rafael in Castle Dale. This is an undiscovered museum that more people should visit. This museum is a natural history museum and contains displays on dinosaurs and Indian artifacts. They have an excellent display of stuffed animals from the area and a small mineral exhibit; several murals are a great addition to the displays.

After our short tour of the museum, we headed south and took the Moore Cutoff Road where we visited the Rochester Panel.

Photos of this panel have appeared in many national and international publications. After which we saw the dinosaur tracks that were uncovered during the construction of that road. We connected up with I-70 and headed east to the next off ramp where we headed north into the San Rafael Swell. The geology of this area is known world-wide and the ages of the rocks cover the Permian to as young as the Cretaceous.

The San Rafael Swell is rich in artifacts left by ancient man as well as fossils and geologic splendor. We visited the Buckhorn Panel and saw Matt Warner’s signature (he was a member of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch). We also visited the worst kept secret in Emery County, the Buckhorn Dinosaur Track.

This track is believed to be from a dilophosaurus. In the upper part of the canyon the cliffs are formed from weathered Navajo sandstone. The Navajo sandstone is sand dune deposits that have lithified into rock. The cross-bedding of the petrified sand dunes is beautiful and I never tire of studying them.

On our way to the Swarez Site, we visited the Crystal Geyser and later we were able to witness an eruption.

Tuesday, we began excavations at the site. The weather was very hot (100 + degrees F). The bones continue to be abundant and in good condition. We were able to uncover several more specimens of the therizinosaur and the nodosaur over the next two days. Keeping cool and hydrated was our top priority.

Thursday, we closed up the quarry and headed for Price where the participants enjoyed a cooling dip in the Desert Wave Pool and were able to sleep in air conditioned comfort that night.

Friday, was spent in the lab prepping out some of the bones that were excavated that week. Unfortunately the heat had taken its toll and two of our participants did not feel well.

The week was a success. We accomplished our goals, forged new friendships and for the most part had another great week.

Digging with Californians

2009-07-09T09:03:00.000-07:00

A father and son team Mehdi and Raayan arrived to go out with us June 29^th to the Swarez Site. The day was beautiful and sunny as we started out from the museum. Of course, we had to stop at Crystal Geyser near Green River, Utah. It was doing a little bubbling and teasing us with some two to three foot eruptions, but nothing more.

We reached the trailhead leading to Swarez just before lunch time so we ate an early lunch and loaded up our gear. We arrived at the site and while Bill gave a brief introduction to our California friends I commenced picking at the overburden. The overburden is about 5 feet thick over the bones and we needed to remove more overburden to continue excavating the bone bed. We each took our turn with the pick and shovels and finally we were able to uncover the bone bed, put up the shades and begin uncovering the fossil bones.

We were very successful during our two days. We found the first skull bone from the huge nodosaur we know to be deposited here. It is the right premaxillary beak. We also uncovered and collected other bones including two jaws and several pubis bones along with ungles etc. In the area Bill was working, several pieces of armor from the nodosaur were found. Unfortunately, it is imbedded in sandstone, making it difficult to remove. On our next trip, we will map the area and remove the sandstone in blocks and bring them back to the lab.

Monday and Tuesday the temperatures topped out at over 100 degrees so we were in no danger of freezing. The sunsets were beautiful as usual. The second evening Mehdi decided to hike to one of the peaks close by and enjoy the sunset.
We were fortunate that it cooled off in the evenings making it easy to sleep. We have been able to prep out some of the bones. Below is a therizinosaur jaw that we recovered.

Everyone had a great time and we hope to get together again in the future.

Casper the Friendly Conference

2009-07-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-19T08:10:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-02T08:16:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-05-20T10:58:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-04-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-20T08:05:00.000-07:00

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.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

2008-12-17T07:33:00.000-08:00

Have a happy holiday season and best wishes for 2009. I will blog again next year!

Never Been Lost (but there have been a few days I didn’t quite know where I was)

2008-12-10T08:01:00.001-08:00

We’re still looking for new bone sites to excavate and a week ago, our travels took us southeast of Clawson Utah into another part of the San Rafael Swell. The Cedar Mountain is thin in this area but we were able to find a few bone scatters, some dinosaur eggshell and some more petrified wood in the Dakota.

The Dakota Formation caps the top of the Cedar Mountain and was formed when the Mancos Sea was expanding into North America during the Cretaceous period.

Some of the weathering patterns are very interesting so I snapped a few photos.

The petrified wood was in a log about 8’ long, a little less than 3 meters. Unfortunately, it was heavily broken up but the interesting thing about the wood is it had no rings. It had rays radiating out from the center to the outside. This characteristic most likely means that it isn’t a wood, but is more closely related to some type of fern or cycad. We may return next spring and try to remove a section and put it together to get a better picture of what it actually looked like.

Four of us participated on this survey, Marvin Evans, a long time friend and at one time, a co-worker, Lloyd Logan, our Director of Education, me and Bill Heffner, our lab assistant. Oh yes, and I can’t forget Sage, our fearless rock “hound”.

It’s fun walking around and discovering what’s in areas you have not been before. The time went quickly.

Of course, Marvin knew of another cool rock art panel in the area so on our way back to Price, we took a little side trip and checked out the rock art. It seems to me that in times past, other explorers may not have known quite where they were either, but like me, they certainly were not lost.

No Bones About It

2008-11-21T07:55:00.001-08:00

For the past year or more our museum has been preparing for reaccreditation. This happens every ten years and we are quite proud that a museum as small as ours and as understaffed and remote as ours has been able to maintain this prestigious status. Last week, we were visited by two museum people. Their task was to inspect our facilities and interview our staff and others and then to determine if we are still worthy of this rating. I believe everything went well. Unfortunately, their final report will not be finished for a couple of months.

Accreditation of any museum is determined by the many aspects of that museum and how their policies, procedures and practices measure up against museum standards that have been developed over many years. Some of these are security and care of the collections, qualified staff members to perform the duties needed, and a proper functioning organization capable of maintaining the museum and its standards. Since we first were accredited in the early 90’s, the staff, the directors and volunteers have worked very hard to maintain and improve where possible the policies, procedures, storage facilities and working conditions of the museum. So, I am hopeful of a very good report and I believe we will be reaccredited for another ten years.
Now to the fun stuff. Went out surveying again this week through an area I had not been before. This area is just north of the Moore Cut-off Road in the Cedar Mountain Formation. Before we headed up for the survey we did make a stop at the tracks we had stopped at before and showed the volunteers that were with me the tracks.

We began surveying the Cedar Mountain Formation in an area where the exposure was very limited and although we did not find any bone, we did find some petrified wood weathering out of the Dakota. The Dakota sits on top of the Cedar Mountain and was created as the waters of the Mancos Sea began to spread up through North America. In short these are shoreline deposits.
Marvin Evans mentioned he knew of some rock art nearby in Short Canyon. It was about lunch time so we decided to eat lunch in Short Canyon and then visit the rock art. Along the road into Short Canyon, along the cliffs, are embedded large round concretions. We found them very interesting and jokingly theorized that they were cannonballs left over from a great dinosaur battle.

After lunch, we began walking further up the canyon and Marvin pointed out rock art as we walked along. The sandstone boulders that had come down from the top had very interesting weathering patterns and we enjoyed talking about what they looked like. Some became works of art by famous sculptors and others were ancient monsters.

At the head of the canyon were the most interesting petroglyphs. One panel had red painted figures and later someone picked petroglyphs over the top of them. A little further around the cliff were two Barrier Canyon style figures. On our way back, we located a couple more panels of rock art.

Driving further north we stopped and checked out the Cedar Mountain Formation in that area and other than a few pretty rocks, and a flock of Chukars, we didn’t find anything. The day was waning and we decided to continue north in the hopes that our road would connect with another road that would take us back out. While traveling, we noticed several other areas that looked promising and hopefully we will get back soon to survey those areas. We did connect up with a graveled, graded road that took us to Clawson and Highway 10.
We all considered the day a great success even if all we found was rock art, cannonballs and no bones about it.

Elections and Dinosaur Bones

2008-11-12T07:30:00.000-08:00

We live in a great nation. We just finished a hard fought battle between two patriots. They and the current president have set a great example for all of us. Although they differ in ideas and ways of governing our nation, they are working together for the best interest of our country. I’m glad I live in a nation where we settle our differences with words and the voice of the people and not with guns and violence. I’m proud to be an American.

Friday, November 7^th, Reese Barrick, our museum director and paleontologist and I met up with Ray Jones in Castle Dale, Utah. Ray has worked with the museum since the early 90’s. He and his wife Carol are responsible for finding two of our newly discovered dinosaurs. They have retired in Ray’s home town of Castle Dale but continue to be active with our museum and the Museum of the San Rafael.

The three of us headed out to the Moore cut off to visit the tracks that were discovered this last summer. We had another great day, perfect for picture taking. The sun this time of year is lower on the horizon and the relief on the tracks made for great pictures. Over the past few months, the wind and rain has cleaned the tracks off and the detail is better. The tracks represent several types of dinosaurs, small sauropods, a small theropod and an iguanodontid, possibly Camptosaur, because these tracks are from the late Jurassic. The tracks have burrows criss-crossing through them and the matrix around them.

Ray mentioned he knew of a bone site nearby the tracks and we decided to visit the site and record it. It had been a few years since Ray had been to this site and it took us a while but we found it. The bones are situated in the deposits of an ancient stream channel. The deposit is cross bedded with coarse to fine sandstone. The exposed bones are badly weathered and would be a nightmare to excavate. Ray walked around to the back side of the hill and found that the deposit continued all the way through the hill. Some of the exposed vertebrae contained pleurocoelus, these were air cavities. Today’s birds have similar cavities in their bones making their bones lighter weight giving them a more efficient breathing system than humans. Pleurocoelus indicate these bones may be from a sauropod.

All good things must come to an end. We dropped Ray off at his home in Castle Dale and Reese and I returned to the museum.

Wandering the Swell

2008-10-31T07:51:00.000-07:00

The weather has been great this month. We have been out walking around the San Rafael Swell checking out areas for fossils, mainly dinosaur bone. One known area we call the gator site, (probably a fossilized crocodile) can be seen in the side of an overhang. Unfortunately, amateurs have been picking at it and it is slowly disappearing. The fossil is in a conglomerate. Next to the fossil ancient men painted in red, a series of pictographs of men with electrified looking hair. Renee Barlow, our archaeologist at the museum, identified these as Barrier Canyon style (see her blog for more details).

The leaves in the small canyon were falling from the river birch, and the area was very beautiful and pleasant. (I’ve got such a hard job).

We then headed to an area east of Castle Dale to explore new territory. We did a lot of walking but unfortunately very few fossils were found with the exception of a turtle site that I GPSed (Global Positioning System) and recorded. We also found some Tempskya. Tempskya is a tree fern that grew during the Cretaceous period. Later, we found a couple more bone sites, one with a couple fragments of crocodile scutes.

Barb Benson, a UFOP (Utah Friends of Paleontology) member, and Marvin Evans, a retired lab and field assistant of mine, was with us. We found a USGS (United States Geological Survey) marker. The wooden stake that had been propped up to make the marker easier to find had fallen down so Marvin proceeded to brace it back up with rocks from the area. As he picked up one rock, he stopped and looked at it. As he did so, I looked over at the rock he was carrying and asked him what he had in his hands. He said, “I think it is dinosaur bone” and it was. We had parked right by a bone outcrop.

After a little more survey work it was time to head home. Our couple days of wandering the Swell had come to an end for a while.

Paleo Dude Goes To Cleveland, Ohio

2008-10-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, the 14th of October I along with some other paleontologists boarded a plane at the Salt Lake City airport and headed for Cleveland, Ohio. Our purpose was to participate in an international conference on paleontology. The group is called the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, SVP for short and this was our annual conference. More than 1,100 paleontologists attended the conference from many countries around the world. We enjoyed talks given on a variety of subjects, renewed old friendships and caught up on the latest discoveries

That night, we enjoyed a lecture at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and were able to look at many of the displays.

My job at the museum is preparing dinosaur bones for study. One of the symposiums Wednesday morning was for preparators and I listened to talks on new field techniques and ways to prepare delicate fossils in the lab. The fossil shown in the talk was paper thin. The bone itself, not more than 1 mm thick, was extremely delicate. The preparator stabilized the bone with material that, after a few days, would evaporate so multiple applications were needed to maintain the strength. The great advantage is the fact that the strengthening material would completely disappear after the process was complete.
The next day, Thursday, some of us found time to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame is located on the shore of Lake Eerie. This is the first time I have seen one of the Great Lakes and the view from the upper floors of the building is very nice. I was unable to get a picture from there because they do not allow cameras in the museum. The museum itself is very well laid out beginning with the early years of rock and roll and continuing through to today. My favorite sections were the 50’s and the 60’s.

Friday, I was coauthor on one of the posters presented that day and being the only author in attendance I was required to defend the poster for two hours that day. The poster was about the Yellow Cat Quarry that produced bones from the Gastonia burgei and Utahraptor ostrommaysorum. This was the first big quarry I worked on with the museum. At that time, I was only part time with the museum. I remember summers were hot sometimes reaching 116 degrees in the shade. The poster received good reviews and I had an enjoyable time talking with people.
Saturday was the last day and I enjoyed a few more talks during the day. I also walked around the area. Cleveland has a beautiful Civil War Memorial that I visited for a short time. The guide was very friendly and informative. I neglected to tell the guide that members of my family fought for the south. That evening, was the awards dinner. The food was great and I had good conversation with those at our table. The awards went well and none of the recipients were too long winded.
Sunday was the day we flew back. I had not realized that it takes one hour longer to fly from Cleveland to Salt Lake than it does to fly from Salt Lake to Cleveland. I forgot about the jet stream but I finally arrived back in Price at 10:30 that night tired but better for the experience.

Farewell To An Old Friend

2008-10-06T10:04:00.000-07:00

The week after the Chicago crew left, Bill and I (and Sage) spent two more days at the Suarez Site. On our way into the site, one of our old friends showed himself and posed for a few more pictures. This is the same ram we saw two weeks before. He seems to be staying in the same area. I hope we will see him next year.

We’ve now recovered more than 1,200 bones from this site and we finally found three articulated vertebrae. These vertebrae are from the middle of the tail of a therizinosaur and are interlocked by the neuro spines. Everything else we have found in the quarry has been dis-articulated and mixed in with other sizes of therizinosaur and nodosaur bones so we were anxious to recover three bones that were in the same position together as they were in life.
We had several other fossil bones that were left in the quarry after the when the Chicago crew left and we wanted to remove them before closing the quarry for the winter. The weather was great, the days in the upper 70’s and the nights in the mid 50’s. The stars were beautiful and the Milky Way was clear and sharp.

In closing up the quarry, we covered the few remaining exposed bones with burlap and then dirt and a few rocks. Both Bill’s and my pack’s were a little heavy because we were trying to pack everything out in one trip and for the most part, we did it. Bill made one extra trip up the hill to grab some buckets filled with tools I left at the top of the trail.

On our way home, we made our usual side trip into Green River and enjoyed an ice cream cone from the local coffee shop.

Last Wednesday, October 1st, Bill and I (and Sage) and a couple of students from the College of Eastern Utah, went to the Price River 2 (PR2) quarry. We jacketed one of the bones left there from a previous dig and removed the remaining bones, about eight. This was the first time in fifteen years of excavating at this site we did not leave a bone exposed for the next trip.

PR2 has produced more than 1,200 bones, the majority being brachiosaur, a medium sized sauropod. Nodosaur bones from two separate species have also been recovered. One of them we have just submitted the final draft of the paper to describe and name it. Sorry I can’t tell you the name at this time. You will have to wait until the paper is published. Ken Carpenter from Denver is the lead author with Jeff Bartlett, myself, and Reese Barrick as co-authors.

Over the fifteen years we have excavated at PR2, many friends, some now gone, have helped excavate the bones. Many great experiences and fun stories have come from the activities at this site. It will be hard not to be able to dig at this site. So I say good bye to an old friend.

Chicago is Back!

2008-09-25T09:31:00.000-07:00

We loaded up the equipment and started out for Green River on Monday the 15th. We met the Chicago crew in front of their motel in Green River. It was good to see the returning crew and fun to meet the new-comers.

We started off for the quarry and stopped at Crystal Geyser to see if it was going off. It wasn’t. But the reddish carbon calcium carbonate formations are still impressive and beautiful to look at. Continuing on we made our way into the Suarez Site. We ate lunch before heading out to the site

After some huffing and puffing (Chicago isn’t as high in altitude and the air is much thinner here) climbing the hill and walking the trail to the site, we had a short introduction to the site. The returning crew noticed how much the quarry had expanded since they had been here. I assured them that there were still plenty of fossil bones here to be found and during the week, they were responsible for excavating more than 100 bones. Most of these bones are from the dinosaur therizinosaur but we did find a few bones from a large nodosaur.

We put up shade tarps that block 80% of the sun’s rays but still let light through.

These helped out as the weather was unusually warm for September.

A few surprises were found.

A scorpion was uncovered and he became the focus of attention for a short time. After taking pictures, Bill scooped him up in one of our scoops and removed him to an area away from our dig site and released him. (Scoop and release). Shortly after that, a cricket was found. He was the same color as the scorpion and before the diggers realize that it was a cricket, they had jumped back thinking that it was a scorpion. But we did the scoop and release with the cricket also and things soon got down to some serious excavation, even though more "wildlife" was spotted.

The nights were very comfortable and we had a full moon to light our campsite.

We enjoyed the moon rises and in the mornings, the moon sets. Most of the Chicago crew drove in and out each day staying in motels in Green River.

Thursday was our last day of excavation and at noon, we packed all of our equipment down to the truck and loaded it in so Bill could take it back to the museum in Price. Barb Benson and I and the part of the Chicago crew that camped with us stayed one night in a motel in Green River, the showers felt great. The whole group got together for dinner at Ray’s, the local spot in Green River known for his great hamburgers and steaks. We had an enjoyable time sharing stories and enjoying each other’s company along with the great food.

After dinner, some of us drove out to Crystal Geyser in hopes to see it erupting. It didn’t.

But the stars were fantastic. We could see the Milky Way, the Big Dipper and many other constellations and enjoyed the night silhouettes of the country.

Friday was our field trip. We headed up highway 6 towards Price and then took the east entrance into the San Rafael Swell. The geologic formations are beautiful and very interesting.

We also visited the dinosaur track in Buckhorn Wash and visited the Wedge Overlook.

Some of the crew was interested in collecting a few invertebrate fossils so we stopped at a fossil collecting site and found a few.

Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry was our next stop. We ate lunch in the Boulder Campground at CLDQ then Mike Leschin, the ranger stationed there, gave us a short tour of the visitor’s center.

We visited the quarry buildings after which some of the crew followed me up the hill to see some of the dinosaur tracks and the fossilized clam bed.

The tracks were discovered by a sedimentologist, Greg Nadden, in 1992 and the clam bed was discovered by a crew from United States Geological Survey in 1993. Then we loaded up and headed on to Price.

In Price, we visited the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum and I gave a short tour and then we went to the bone lab. The Chicago crew was especially interested in this area. Many of the bones stored there they helped excavate when they were here before. It’s always good to see the fruits of your labors and know that you are helping to further scientific knowledge of the prehistory of this planet.

It was time to say our good-byes. Many warm handshakes were exchanged and many thanks were given by both sides. It is always great to work with willing volunteers who so generously give of their time and resources.

Big Horned Sheep

2008-09-12T07:58:00.001-07:00

Had a great week in the field (all two days of it). On our way to the Suarez Site we stopped at Crystal Geyser, always a good resting place. We walked around and took a few pictures of geologic formation and plants fossilizing.

We headed driving along on the newly graded and graveled roads that the oil companies have pushed in the area. We made good time. Finally on the old two track, we were back in the rocks and the sand. As we went around one bend, a big horned sheep ran out in front of us. He was a young guy and stopped to have a look at us so I snapped some pictures of him.

At the Suarez Site, Bill and I worked on the east end of the site and found more bones of the therizinosaur and a large nodosaur bone we haven’t identified yet. We are working to get the quarry ready for a crew coming in from the Chicago Field House next week. This is the fourth time this crew has come out to dig with us. They are made up of volunteers that assist at the Field House and are always a fun group.

Now we have been working back in the lab inventorying equipment and making sure we have everything we need. It’s always fun having a crew who enjoys digging dinosaurs. Stay tuned for details of our adventure.

I'm Back...

2008-09-04T07:47:00.000-07:00

For the past 3 weeks I have been in the windy state of Wyoming finding fish fossils, crayfish burrows and having the wind blow dust in areas I didn’t know I had. I brought back a few photos of the wildlife.

Root-a-saurus!

Since I’ve been back we have been back out to Price River 2 (PR2) quarry and continued to excavate the nodosaur at that site. Wednesday, we were able to excavate 25 more bones including a humorous and a very nice dorsal vertebrae.

It’s good to be back. Talk to you next week!

Paleo Dude in a Tux!

2008-08-07T07:42:00.000-07:00

My daughter is finally married. August 2, last Saturday, was a culmination of many months of planning. My wife was the chief planner and designer and although my daughter hired a wedding planner, we did most of the work and for the most part, the wedding went very well. My daughter who I have suggested many times just have a cell phone implant since she always has her phone to her ear, dropped her phone in a parking lot and before she could pick it up, was run over. She complained that all she could do with her phone was send and receive, no texting, no pictures. The tux rental place shorted us one pair of pants so a frantic trip was made back to retrieve a pair of pants. My wife did not think that a pants-less person in the line would look good, and she was probably right, although there would have been a lot to talk about.

Getting on with life as usual, we dug at Price River 2 (PR2) this week. Arriving at the site on Monday Bill and I found that Mother Nature had added considerably to the overburden covering the bones.

Bill and I spent all of Monday with pick, shovel and wheel barrow removing the overburden from off the bones. Tuesday, we were actually able to find the bones. We finished a jacket and moved it out of the way and now we can expose the lower layer of nodosaur bones. As usual, time ran out. We covered the exposed bones once again and left the site until we can return in a few weeks.

I’ll be gone for a couple of weeks so this is my last blog until I return. The last vision I wanted to leave in your mind however, was Paleo Dude in a Tux!

Heat, Thunder and Rain

2008-07-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

Our excursion to Price River 2 started out hot and muggy and buggy. Our purpose was to prepare the sauropod bones for removal. This would let us excavate further and hopefully find some nodosaur. The ischium had been jacketed on our previous trip and we removed it first thing. This opened up the area around the larger jacket and we trenched deeper and was able to complete that jacket also. Bronson, meanwhile, was working on the lower layer and uncovered a cervical vertebrae and a radius from the large nodosaur.

It was very hot and the humidity was higher than usual for Utah desert. Fortunately we brought our shade with us and had set it up before we began excavations. This didn’t help the mugginess however. Around lunch time a slight breeze began to blow. This helped a little and after lunch we mapped and recorded the two nodosaur bones and were able to remove them from the dig site. Black clouds had been gathering and we began to see lightening and hear thunder. The breeze had now turned cool so we received a little relief from the heat.

Knowing how quickly summer thunderstorms can strike, we began cleaning up and gathering our tools and equipment. We had almost everything loaded when the storm hit.
Summer thunderstorms are wonderful to watch.

We were in the safety of our suburban. The lightening was flashing, the rain came down in torrents, the wind was whipping the rain, small riverlets of water began forming and flowing around us and through the quarry area.

Our stainless steel mixing bowl had been left out to fend for itself and was washed down a little ways. After the storm was over, we rescued it.

Everything seems so nice after a storm. The plants look greener and the colors in the soil more vibrant. The air is cooler and seems fresher.
The storm brought mud and debris down into the quarry and working was impossible. We did what we could to cover the site and left to come back another day.

It’s Alive! Paleo Dude in the LAbOratory - AKA Reconstructing new dino skull

2008-07-18T07:42:00.000-07:00

Our PR2 nodosaur has been waiting for his head for a couple of years now. We found skull bones piled up in one area of the quarry. They were broken apart but in one group. The bones consisted mainly of the back or interior end of the skull. One piece of maxilla was found. This contained a tooth from which we were able to sculpt and cast teeth for the reconstruction. We later found the premaxilla about a meter away. Unfortunately, the maxilla was not there so we had to guess at the length of his snout by comparing the size of the bones recovered from the quarry. We also used other skulls from related dinosaurs to determine the length of the snout.

I molded cast all of the skull bones and used the replicas to recreate the skull. This preserved the original bone and by using the replicas I was able to uncrush some of the bones that had been crushed by natural means in the quarry.

I consulted with Ken Carpenter from Denver, one of the foremost experts on armored dinosaurs and he advised me to shorten the snout a little more and that’s what I have been doing this week. We recovered only part of the lower jaw and that will be my project in the next couple weeks, to complete the skull.

It seems that it is quite tricky business creating monsters!

Original tooth in maxilla

Hand full of replicated teeth

Starting the skull

Side view

Working the clay

Getting Plastered Paleo Style

2008-07-11T08:17:00.001-07:00

Price River 2 has been waiting patiently for our attention this year, and we finally made it out to excavate some more bones from this long-time site. The PR2 site is multi-layered. The top layer produces mostly brachiosaur bones of which we have identified 7 individuals so far and the lower layer has a mixture of brachiosaur and nodosaur. The nodosaur, an armored dinosaur is my favorite. He is like a 30 foot long horned toad.

This week we were concentrating our efforts on the upper layer where the brachiosaur is. Tuesday, Craig Royce and Bill and I were able to trench around some of the bones and apply a plaster jacket.

The jackets consist of strips of burlap soaked in plaster and then wrapped around the pedestal bones to hold them together for the journey back to the lab. We first apply either toilet paper or paper towels as a separator to keep the plaster from sticking to the bones. The trenching process to pedestal the bones can be tedious because usually during this process we find more bones and sometimes pedestaling one bone is like trying to pedestal one noodle of spaghetti in a massive pasta plate.

Wednesday a small crew of naive high school students accompanied us into the field. First thing we did was loosen one of the finished jackets we had made the day before and turned it over and removed it from the quarry. This opened up a previously inaccessible side of two other bones we had partially jacketed and a third bone, an ischium, we were trenching around to jacket. The heat of the day was taking its toll on everyone but especially on our high school volunteers.
Bill and one of our volunteers were able to jacket the ischium after which we broke for lunch. Everyone had Gatorade and plenty of water but three out of our four students were done in and were having lack of energy issues after lunch.

We packed up a little early and headed back to town. The air conditioning in the vehicles helped, and the thought of a dip in the wave pool in Price energized them and they began perking up. And that’s how it is when you get plastered in the field.

Bugs, Heat and Dust

2008-07-03T07:50:00.000-07:00

The dig program for the museum has been put on hold for a short time while we interviewed for the Director of Education position. However we did squeeze one day in. We went out to the Price River Two PR2 quarries, one of our old standbys. We had been excavating at this quarry since 1993 and it has yielded seven brachiosaurs and three armored dinosaurs plus some material we haven’t been able to identify yet.

Wednesday, we had a crew of five and began uncovering the quarry. The overburden around the quarry is quite high and weathers down over the site and quite a bit of weathering had happened since our last visit, but we had a good crew and we were able to get down to the bones. The surface material was powder dry but about a foot under the surface we ran into some mud. The bones are in good condition, as far as PR2 is concerned. We soon ran out of time and we covered the bones back up for protection and headed back to Price and hoped to be able to return next week. This particular quarry has been continuing to produce, it seems that some things are worth putting up with bugs, heat and dust for.

Snakes, Bones and High School Students

2008-06-24T11:59:00.000-07:00

We started from the Museum of the San Rafael in Castle Dale Utah. Nine students, five leaders. After checking out the great displays at the museum, we headed south into the Mussentuchit area where our Eolambia 2 (EO2) site is. The weather was great, just a bit on the warm side, with a slight breeze to keep the bugs down.

While setting up camp, I heard several shouts to come and see. So I grabbed my camera and headed down into the camp area.

A rattle snake had been found by one of the participants and since no one wanted him for a tent mate we decided to relocate the snake. Using a shovel and a burlap bag, we coaxed the snake into the burlap bag and carried him some distance from the camp where he was released.

With camp set up we packed up some gear and headed down to the dig site. We had a gas powered generator and an electric jackhammer that we used to remove some of the overburden.

After an hour or a little more we were able to clear off the bone bed and begin excavating dinosaur bones for a short time before dinner.

After dinner we visited an ancient Indian campsite and saw some petroglyphs left there by the early campers. Lithic scatter covered the ground of the camp area where ancient artisans had been working with a chert.

Tuesday we were able to excavate all day long and recorded mapped and removed forty plus bones from the site.

Wednesday I got up early (at my usual time) and headed down to the site while the crew was getting up and having their breakfast. I worked on removing some more overburden, and was very successful, because the sandstone layer above the site loosened from the vibration of the jackhammer and came down just after I stepped out of the way and avoided disaster. The other participants arrived and using the jackhammer, after we unburied it, whittled the larger chunks of sandstone into manageable pieces and had the bone bed cleared off once more.

We closed up the quarry early that day in order to get the supply truck back to the museum in Price so the personnel there could unload it. The rest of us went on an expedition to the eggshell site and collected some eggshell and turtle shell from that site for study back at the College of Eastern Utah in Price.

Thursday we broke camp early and headed out for a day studying the geology of the area. We played on the sand dunes for a while, looked at dikes and sills that are abundant in that area, studied folds and faults, saw great vistas and dinosaur tracks and ended up back at the Museum of the San Rafael.

Friday we spent at the lab in Price working at preparing some of the bones we had collected for study. Everyone had a great time, new friendships were made and old friendships had been renewed.

Blown Away Again!

2008-06-13T07:57:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, we loaded up the suburban, Bill Casey and me, and don’t forget Sage, off to explore new territory in the Mussentuchit Area. The weather was great, a little cool, a little breeze, sunny. We made it to our starting point about ten o’clock or ten thirty. We ate an early lunch, took a little food and lots of water with us and dropped off the cliff down onto the site in the Cedar Mountain Formation. Only a short time later, we began finding bone. It was mostly fragments and unidentifiable.

Persistence paid off and we found the site with some good bone in it. It was another Eolambia. We were hoping for crocodile or a theropod of some sort. We uncovered a humerus, an upper arm bone, a predentary, an 'extra' bone in the front of the lower jaw, and a fibula, one of the lower leg bones, and an assortment of bone fragments. We collected all but the tibia, photographed and recorded the site. The wind had been increasing in strength as the day went on and just after I handed Bill a scale, (a laminated marker) to hold by the bone and the wind gusted and blew the scale out of his hand never to be seen again. Fortunately, I had more that one. We then moved on looking for more sites.

We crossed the valley to the other site. Casey and Bill went up the hill while I stayed down in the lower area. We worked our way around to where we could see over the hill and could figure out where we were in relation to other sites in the area. Our water was beginning to run low and the wind was picking up and we had a ways to walk back to the suburban so we called it a day.

Back at the suburban, we rested a bit after our climb up the hill and headed off to find ourselves a good campsite with some protection from the wind. We camped in some boulders that night that afforded some protection and when morning dawned, the wind had subsided. A cold front had moved through and the temperatures had dropped a little.

The next morning we ate a good breakfast and headed back to cover some territory we had not been to yet. The walk in was up a long, sloping hill to where we could drop into the valley that we were surveying. We found a USGS (United States Geological Survey) marker. Many of these were surveyed in the 1930’s and later in the early 1950’s quarter section markers were added. This one was a quarter section marker surveyed in 1951. I like to GPS (Global Positioning System) these markers. This helps me when I am mapping locations and routes that we have traveled. As we began surveying, we found very little bone but we did find some wood. The wood tells us what type of plants grew during that time period and gives us clues as to the climate. And finally, we found our first bone site of the day.

The bone was brown which is unusual for the area we were in. All of the other bone sites, the bone has been black. The day has been beautiful so far and warming up a bit to a more comfortable temperature with a breeze blowing. The previous day, Casey had found a piece of petrified wood and we wanted to GPS its location, so we headed back to that area. The wind began picking up and became very strong and we finally decided to leave that wood for another day because the wind was blowing so hard we were having trouble walking and the wood was near the edge of a cliff.

We decided to cover another hill that was nearby and although the wind was very strong we were able to work around it locating a site with vertebrae scattered on the surface. Fragments from other bones were also visible on the surface. Poor Sage was so tired she laid down and went to sleep while we were photographing and recording this site. We left all the bones at the site. If we decide to excavate this site, we will collect them later. Other sites were found on that same hill. The afternoon was beginning to grow short and we were running out of time so we headed back towards the suburban. Bill was telling one of his snake stories, and he happened to spot a bull snake, we stopped and took a couple of pictures and a little video and said goodbye to our friend, continuing back to the suburban.

We arrived back at the suburban a little after three o’clock. We ate and rested for a few minutes and then headed back to the museum. On our way back, we passed through the small town of Emery and found that we were not the only ones experiencing wind. As we passed the park, we looked over and saw a large Navajo Globe Willow Tree that had been uprooted by the wind and was sadly laying on its side. Looks like we weren’t the only things that were blown away!

Getting High with Paleo Dude

2008-06-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

This week has been very busy. Tuesday, we brought up a mold we made a few years back of the bones in situ (in place). We made a cast of the mold and the cast was used as a part of the front of the Mesozoic Gardens Exhibit. We used WEP (water emulsified polyester), fortunately we did this outside in fresh air so we didn’t get too high!

Wednesday, we went out to the Swarez Site near Green River Utah. The day started out beautiful, a bit overcast, great working weather. We reestablished the grid for mapping the bones as they are excavated and we started some excavation when a cold front hit and we were rained out. The ride out was slippery in spots and my companions promised me a two scoop ice cream cone if I got them out without sliding off the road. The ice cream was good.

We had planned on staying overnight at Swarez, but instead, we had to suffer in our own comfortable beds. The next day we headed down into the San Rafael Swell where the road crosses the San Rafael River is the historical site of Swinging Bridge. We followed the road east from the campground area and into Red Canyon. The ground was moist from the storm and the weather was cool, another perfect day for hiking.

The rain caused the colors to intensify and the area was beautiful.

Wild flowers were blooming.

We hiked up the mountain along the way passing naturally sculptured sandstone boulders of various shapes and sizes found in the Chinle Formation.

Chinle is known for its abundance of petrified wood and the petrified forest in Arizona is a great example. The wood in this part of the Chinle is not as colorful but still can be attractive. The wood was abundant and we wanted to find the layer it was weathering out from. That afternoon, we hiked up the hillside to a large sandstone layer and finally found wood in situ.We found four logs from ten inches in diameter to fourteen inches in diameter still in the sandstone. The sandstone at the bottom had some cross-bedding indicating water movement such as a river. We worked our way down with samples we had collected and headed back out.

By this time blue sky was around us with beautiful white clouds as a backdrop for the beautifully sculptured landscape. We had been blessed with another very successful field trip. At the end of the movie Hook, Peter Pan (Robin Williams) said to live is a great adventure, and so it is.

Visiting the Carol Site

2008-05-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

Thursday I had a chance to revisit one of my favorite sites that I spent much time at, the Carol site found by Carol and Raymal Jones currently living in Castle Dale. Carol found the site and Ray developed technology to locate bones beneath the surface of the ground. Two new dinosaurs were discovered at this site. The type specimens for Eolambia caroljonesi and Animantarx raymaljones came from this site. Both type specimens are housed in the collections at the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum in Price, Utah. The Animantarx has been molded and cast and is on display. Plans are in the works to mold and cast the Eolambia.

Yesterday, Dr. Brooks Britt from BYU and his student Hero and I visited the site not to check for bones, but to find sedimentalogical evidence for the age of the fossil bones. Dr. Britt and Hero are working on a paper correlating the dates of the different quarries in the Cedar Mountain Formation. This will help us in knowing when the animals lived in relationship to each other.

We hiked around the area noting paleosols. These are ancient soil horizons. We measured sections and thicknesses of channel sands. These are sandstone layers laid down by stream deposits.

As we walked we enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the San Rafael Swell and the great variety of wildflowers that are in bloom. All in all we had a great day. Brooks and Hero left with several bags of sediment that they hoped would contain materials that they could use for dating and it’s always great to be with old friends.

Back in the Lab

2008-05-23T07:22:00.000-07:00

Last Friday the Purdue Crew prepped out many of the bones we excavated from EO2 and this week, I’ve been preparing the prepped bones to be catalogued and working on a few others.

The bones from EO2 are, for the most part, well preserved and easy to prep out for study. One of the more interesting bones is a brain-case from a sub-adult Eolambia.

This is only the second brain case we have from Eolambia. The first is the type specimen from the Carol site found in the mid 90’s.

Our new brain-case is smaller and in better condition and if all goes well, I will finish prepping it out today.

The Eolambia collection we have is very important and unusual because we have Eolambia ranging from very small to adult. This collection can be used to do growth studies.

Most dinosaurs are known from a limited number of specimens and growth studies are impossible on most genera.

Paleo Dude Blown Away!

2008-05-19T09:40:00.000-07:00

This week in the field a group from Purdue University under the direction of Dr. Rich Hengst helped us at the Eolambia 2 site. These low-landers come from an area about 600 foot elevation and found the air a bit thin at 6,000 feet. The hike down to the quarry was always easy, but the breathing was pretty hard coming back up. We started out Monday from the museum in Price, Utah. Stopped at the Grub Box in Ferron for lunch and arrived at the quarry two-ish.

The wind was blowing quite briskly so we hiked around the area looking at the different fossil sites and talking about some of the geology. The evening was cold, and with the chill factor, was near freezing. The next day, Tuesday, the weather looked better and after a gourmet breakfast prepared by Chef Hengst, we started working the quarry.

At first we had to work the overburden back and then began working the quarry down to the bone bed and found a few bones that day. In the evening, we hiked over to an ancient campsite where prehistoric man had once camped and looked at some of the artifacts on the ground. Of course we left them where they lay. Then we hiked over to a petroglyph panel accessed through a narrow crack in a large boulder.

At this time, the sun was low on the horizon and the colors of the valley below us were magnificent. The second night was a bit warmer and we woke up the next day to beautiful weather, unfortunately the wind found us again but the day was warm. That day we excavated 48 more bones from Eolambia. Several skull bones were found and excavated. We put a plaster jacket around a braincase and were able to remove that intact.

The evening was warm yet still breezy and conversation was fun and friendships grew. Thursday, time to break camp and then we headed out on our geology tour. This followed the route we had covered last week. The Crew from Purdue enjoyed playing on the sand dune and getting sand in places that should not contain sand.

After that we visited one of Butch Cassidy’s campsites where his name has been written on the rock in axel grease and can be still seen today. There we also talked about geology, the formations and how they were created.

Next we stopped at some dikes and a gypsum quarry. The wildflowers were out in abundance and added to the natural beauty. We continued following the same route as last week. This time, however, we surprised a herd of wild horses! Most of the Purdue Crew had never been four wheeling on back roads and found the experience to be exciting and enjoyable.

We finally reached I-70 and headed up the Moore Cut-Off Road to visit the newly discovered dinosaur tracks and then home after a stop at Gilly’s in Ferron for ice cream. And we all looked forward to a very long, hot shower.

Paleo Dude in Devil’s Canyon

2008-05-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was heaven in Devil's Canyon. It was great weather, cool breeze, the sun was shining. We were south of I-70. We started by checking out the sand dune near Willow Springs. It's a fun sand dune that fortunately has not been discovered by many people.

From there we headed south east into the Dike's area.The Dike's area was created during the Miocene epic when magma forced itself up through cracks in the earth and flowed along surfaces and then cooled and solidified. Since then the softer sediments have eroded away and left the hard, cooled magma which creates beautiful monoliths, walls and horizontal deposits that have weathered into hexagonal columnar deposits. These create great viewing opportunities.

Being short of time, we left there and went up into the Cat Canyon area. This is a shallow canyon that is rich in selenite. Selenite is a clear form of gypsum and some pieces can be seen through similar to glass. In this area, the selenite crystals formed six foot high boulders, very impressive!

Following the road further, (most of the road followed the bottom of the stream channel) we entered the Copper Globe Mining area. In the early 1900's mining operations were in full swing. Unfortunately, for the miners, the copper deposit wasn't rich enough to be profitable. As you visit the area today, deposits of low grade azurite can be seen scattered around on the surface. Two of the mine portals are still open and a couple of the buildings still standing. The formation of the area is Navajo sandstone, which is formed by an ancient desert. The sand dunes of this ancient desert are now lithified into huge majestic formations. The Copper Globe Mine is at the base of these rockified sand dunes. This is a beautiful area.

Continuing east we entered the Devil's Canyon area of deep canyons, high cliffs and narrow, rough roads. These cliffs are formed in a very thick deposit of Navajo sandstone. Weathering of wind and water has created some beautiful scenery. Well-named this is not a place to enter unprepared.

Leaving the Devils' Canyon area and crossing I-70, we followed the Moore Cutoff road north. Recent road construction had uncovered dinosaur tracks in the Morrison Formation. These are last Jurassic in age. There are sauropod, ornithopod and theropods tracks that can be seen. They also have insect burrows running through the ancient mud around them. Alden Hamblin was the consulting paleontologist on the project that recognized the tracks and had them set aside to preserve them. After that, the day was spent and we headed home.