Fossil Dig 2010
Update 6 July 2010
Starting this entry late Tuesday night and promising myself it will be brief. So here is the short hand recap of the last two days. Monday the temperature dropped about 35 degrees and we were wearing layers of clothing to keep warm. The wind was brisk and the skies were threatening.
Students and "prospectors" met at the Tinker excavation site around 9:00. The original plan allowed prospectors to collect on the ranch and the students to continue excavating the bones discovered last week and dig another two new quadrants to look for more bones. The weather, however, had other plans and everyone was back in their vehicles and drove to the county road to wait out the rain.
Fortunately the rain past quickly and we were back to the site within the hour. The prospectors headed out with Rob and Steve and I waited for Ron to drive me over to the horn site. The students were left to continue the work as described.
Ron and Fred dropped me off at the bluff around 10:30 and said they would return around 1:00 to pick me up. I walked up to the horn and assembled my tools and began the work of excavating the Triceratops horn. Steve, Ron and Rob all agreed that there was good bone on the under side of the horn and that this excavation was appropriate. My job was to work around the perimeter of the fossil, then pedestal it for a plaster jacket. Having only watched this process in Wyoming last summer, I was on a steep learning curve.
I used the locking blade knife I borrowed from Rob since my Swiss Army knife was not suitable for the work and my bayonet blade knife is too large. I continued the work started by Steve, cleaning the matrix away from the edges of the fossil. I cleared matrix from the back of the fossil and removed some of the betonite that was in the hill above it as well. Fortunately the weather stayed cool and I was sheltered from the wind by the hill I was working behind. Really very enjoyable to be out there all by myself focussed on the task. Almost a meditation.
After about two hours I began to doubt once again the wisdom of this excavation. As I worked it appeared that the quality of the fossil was very poor and that the good bone predicted by the experts was not to be seen. I wondered if they were working on this fossil, would they just leave it to nature to continue the process of degradation. At the end of the day I did not want to feel that I had wasted my time.
Rob was hunting the hill next to the one I was working and he called out to me to find out how it was going. I answered that the bone quality was really poor and he acknowleged. That interaction made me really think that my efforts might reap few rewards. Yet the day was lovely and I did not want to give up so easily. I kept at it and at some point remembered a quote from Michelangelo regarding the sculpting process: the sculpture was hidden in the marble, and he was merely revealing it. Now, I am certainly not comparing myself to him but I did try to embrace this approach to my process. Hopefully there was something wonderful to be revealed.
Soon the fossil sort of released itself from the matrix and I was able to almost lift it off the dirt. I worked on the hillside a little more and in so doing uncovered "chocolate" bone. This is bone that is a beautiful chocolate brown color and of good quality. At last I felt the effort was worth it, and perhaps there would be more of this good bone on the underside, as the aforementioned gentlemen had predicted. I checked my watch and it was 2:30! Wow! Time flies. I continued removing matrix and was able to lift the horn and skull/frill off the ground.
Ron and Fred arrived full of apologies for being so late, which I said were unecessary since I had just reached a stopping point, realized a jacket was not required and the fossil could be wrapped in foil. Ron poked around a little more in the surrounding betonite and found a piece of nice bone that had fallen off when I lifted it. He suggested I might want to come back one day this week to look for more of the animal in the hill. Perhaps!? We wrapped it in foil and Ron carried it to the truck for me.
I heard about their adventures and finds. They did pretty well and found some good quality bone: part of a hadrosaur humerus, and a partial long bone. I offered to clean and assemble the broken pieces of the humerus. We drove back to the Tinker site and we waited for the others to return from the field. Eventually, Ron drove me to my car and transferred the fossil to the trunk. I drove back to the motel and carried the horn up to my room.
Since we returned from the field early I had lots of time for fossil work. I cleaned and glued the pieces of humerus and wrapped it up for Fred. I spent the next many hours working on the horn. By the end of the night it looked like a rectangular chip 'n dip tray. The partial horn is lying on what appears to be either skull or frill. Perhaps I am being too harsh, but it is really not the amazing fossil treasure I had imagined. The bone quality is extremely low except for a few places. I will ship it home to work on it myself; hardly worth paying a professional to prep it. I am content to accept it as a good piece on which to practice fossil prep techniques, so when I find the next, and more fabulous fossil, I will have more confidence and better skills.
Tuesday morning, cloudy and rainy. Rob had to return home to Chicago and then fly to Florida because his father is dying. Sad news. Collecting and excavating put on hold until 11:00. The excavating was cancelled for the day as far as I know. The prospectors and Steve drove out to the fish site after an early lunch in the motel garage. I rode with Jim and Gina since I did not want to risk driving the rental car to that site. It is one hour away in North Dakota on the Miller ranch and the roads are not too bad but the "road" on the ranch has lots of places to get stuck, especially after, or in the rain. We prospectors were given general directions of collection areas and Steve stayed behind to continue work on the paddle fish jacket.
We started out into the field around 1:00 and 5:00 was the established return time. I searched low places and high places and all in between. I went up little washes and down washes. I followed bone scrap up hill to find terribly old blown out fossils. In frustration I picked up a few bits just so I was doing something. (In the trash by nightfall) We got rained on for about an hour, but after that it was just a lovely cool afternoon walking around in magical country. Fossils or not, the natural beauty is intoxicating.
Headed back to the fish site in time to see the rancher driving the "bobcat" use the forklift to hoist that jacket completely onto the trailer. Success at last, as Ron drove his yellow truck with the trailer hitched to it, safely off the site. The prospectors returned and everyone headed back to Buffalo.
I spent more hours working on the horn in preparation for shipment. Dana has offered to take it to Spearfish to the UPS store. They are familiar with packing and shipping fossils so I am sure it will be in good hands. She will pick it up tomorrow. This is probably a good thing at this point since I am totally consumed by it and I need to stop work on it so I can get back to blogging and trying to get more than 6 hours of sleep a night. I did not even cook dinner. I need an Intervention!
Update to an earlier blog. I asked Rob to look at a few recent fossil finds and give me his educated opinion. He thinks that one of them is a toe bone from a baby Tyrannosaur rex that would have been the size of a dog. He also said I found a vertebra from a young T. rex. These are very good fossils (esp. toe bone) and much rarer than teeth.
Cheers,
Christine, Momasaurus
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