Fossil Dig 2010
Update 2 July 2010
After a late night of blog writing and insufficient sleep, I approached the day cautiously. Fatigue and heat are not a winning combination. Breakfast was made with my eyes half open and I secretly longed for a cafe latte, (leaded, as my father would say). After yummy hot cereal and a cup of tea, I began to brighten and focused on the day's potential; Steve will confirm the Triceratops brow horn, and the Tinker site will finally reveal its hidden bones.
We saw Steve at the cafe and he asked that we work the site in the morning and collect in the afternoon (or return to the horn). We made a quick stop at the market for additional lunch supplies and dinner veggies. We also bought heavy foil for wrapping fossils and zip lock bags, for food and fossils. We reached the site around 9:30 and the team was hard at work.
Steve changed his mind about our schedule and asked that we collect in the morning and work the site in the afternoon since some of the team would be missing. (more on that later). We gathered our packs and plenty of water and waited for Ron since he offered to drive us to the "horn" site. We wanted to continue hunting on the larger butte next to the smaller one where the Triceratops horn was discovered. Laurel had found some interesting scrap pieces and we wanted to see if there was more in the area.
We reached the site around 11:00 and confirmed with Ron that he would pick us up at 12:30. We headed over to the taller butte we called the "saddle" because of its top. Walking around the base and looking at the ground and the wall, I noticed a familiar shape in the wall. Though the coloration was almost identical to the clay/matrix, it was stuck in, this dromeosaur tail vertebra was calling to me. I carefully pried it out with my knife and marveled at it's near perfection. What a beauty. A fabulous start to the day!
I climbed up to the next level and as I was walking a gust of wind knocked my hat off. This is serious because you do not want to be hat less in this blazing sun. I gingerly walked at a quick pace on that treacherous betonite to chase down my precious hat. Fortunately a tiny bush had stopped it from flying even farther away. I captured it and adjusted the chin strap so that it was practically choking me. As I reoriented myself I looked at the betonite in front of me and found a tiny Gar (fish) scale. First one this season. (They are usually the first thing you learn to spot because many of them are shiny black and therefore easy to see on the various soil surfaces.) Not far from the scale was a somewhat familiar shape that could have been iron siderite, which is often in this same shape, but this time was a Triceratops shed tooth. Now this is fossil hunting!
Laurel and I continued to look around the base and next easiest level of the saddle butte and then moved back to the smaller butte where the horn is located. We were getting hot and tired and Ron was due soon. Laurel found a good spill of decent size bone and we dug into the ground a bit. Some of the bone was so deteriorated it was literally powder. Too bad because some of the fragments were very good. She kept some of them.
We walked over to the horn and she took a picture of me with it. Since the time for our ride had arrived, we climbed down the bluff, which in this case is very easy, and waited in the grass for Ron. We decided to eat lunch because it was after 12:30 and in the event he had been hung up at the site we could use this delay to rest and refresh. (As best we could in the heat and no shade).
Near 1:00 Ron arrived with Steve who had agreed to come out to inspect the discovery. He agreed it is a Triceratops horn; probably brow horn, and after clearing some of the matrix from below the horn he thinks it might be resting on some frill. The bone that he believes is frill is a lovely shade of brown and with any luck the underside of the fossil horn will also be this color and quality. He instructed me on how to proceed on the preparation of it for jacketing. The work will require patience and all the right tools: knife, brush, glue and eventually plaster and fiberglass. My first jacketed fossil. I hope there will be enough time next week to accomplish the task.
I confessed that I was a little nervous about his appraisal of the fossil and its worthiness for removing and restoring. He assured me that if he had found it he would do just what I will be doing. It is definitely worth keeping. Hooray!
Laurel is trying to convince me that I should ship it home and do the preparation myself. I am willing to consider that option after I have a the opportunity to work with it in the field and hopefully get a glimpse of the condition of the bone on the underside. Even if I am overwhelmed by the task once I get home, I could probably find someone locally to work on it. I am excited about the possibility of the project. First things first....get it safely out of the ground and in a jacket.
We returned to the Tinker site and finished lunch.
The Tinker team worked in the morning excavating the two areas that Steve targeted as priorities. Near lunchtime one rib bone was discovered. It is going into the hill opposite of the hill that was lowered by the CAT earlier in the week. There is even more overburden on this hill and I do not know if the CAT will be returning this year or next to help with the excavation process. Since I was not at the site during this time I do not know how the decision was made to continue excavating the quadrant and leave the rib for some later date.
Two students returned home today and Theresa drove them to the airport in Rapid City and then shopped at the WalMart for supplies. Laurel and I were requested to help on the site in the afternoon since four people were missing. As it turned out, because the dig space was reduced and much of the work was now being done with hand trowels and brushes, we felt like fifth wheels.
Standing around looking stupid is not my style. The afternoons really heat up and today was no exception, low 90s again. So we waited until some of the team took a shade break and we picked up shovels and began filling buckets with dirt. We have had plenty of practice at this task during the last four days so we hit an easy rhythm pretty quickly. We successfully lowered the overburden to the level required and then it was time to clean up the site and organize the tools for Monday.
As it turned out we did not work on the site much today, and that is somewhat regrettable since multiple bones were discovered. It would have been nice to be part of that. On the other hand, most of the students have been working together for three weeks this summer and our participation during the most rewarding hours is probably somewhat of an intrusion. I may have a chance next week when the team returns to the site on Monday. I am scheduled to assist on the Tinker site and then work on my Triceratops horn. More to come.
We set out for more personal collecting after everyone was released. Ron decided to join us (he just can't resist the "hunt"), and he drove us to another area to try our luck. We are very cautious about our descent and ascents on these treacherous formations of the "Badlands" so we found a reasonably easy way down to the base of the "hills". The whole area is somewhat deceiving because from a distance you see lots of green grass with the occasional butte or promontory. When you are in the middle of it, it is a maze of washes and elevations of betonite and sandstone. It is easy to get lost if you are not paying attention to some "landmark" from time to time and it is easy to slip on the unstable footing of betonite, iron siderite pieces or sandstone.
We worked our way down while keeping our eyes on the ground and the walls of the formations for the telltale signs of fossil. We really did not find much. I found a little scrap here and there and a broken bone which may be a process from a small vertebra. Laurel found lots of cattle bones and I found a cow skeleton with the spine still articulated and suspended across a narrow crevice created by a sink hole.
That was too eery to photograph, sorry.
We returned to the truck before Ron. He arrived some time later carrying a nice antler and a few bone fragments the size of the palm of your hand. He said he found so much bone he couldn't carry it. (No back pack or zip lock bags). We were happy for him, but oh so disappointed that our efforts had not yielded the same treasures.
It is true that he risked a serious accident when he had to slide all the way down a sharp hill because the descent was so steep. I imagine there was another approach to the area if one was determined to find it.
Overall, knowing that the two "prospectors" from Georgia had a fabulous day finding incredible bones in a 10' by 10' area, we left the field pretty disappointed. I know that Laurel is especially discouraged since tomorrow is her last day and we are not sure of our collecting prospects. Ron is trying to help us in any way he can, and he has been more than generous with his time and support for our collecting time on the ranch. We really appreciate his efforts. We are so happy for him now that bones are being uncovered on the Tinker site. He is justifiably thrilled.
I am thankful for my beautiful horn and the additional fossils I found this morning. This next week will provide some exciting "firsts" for me as I work on the horn in preparation for jacketing. WOW! Lucky me. Hooray!
Congratulations to all of the team for their hard work on the Tinker site. What an incredible job!
Cheers,
Christine , Momasaurus
No comments:
Post a Comment