Dino School Alumnus

Mac English
Dinosaur Field School
6/30-7/30/2010
We miss you.

Thank You to All.

It is Monday Morning, August 2nd, 5:42AM. The sunrise calls of Lark Sparrows chitter on the hillside above my tent. Far off a thin whisp of clouds hang over the still dim hogback ridges. A half disolved moon sits where a blazing noon time sun will soon dictate the pace of the day's work. If all goes well, the rest of our Diplodocus fossils will be jacketed and lugged down to our waiting transport.The Quarry that has provided a wealth of knowledge will be backfilled and converted once again into a rolling rocky landscape silent to the intrusion of man Glenn and Crew would like to thank every single person who helped in this 2010 Mother's Day Expedition. Their help has given us a chance to jacket-up nearly 180 remnants of a fantastic herbiverous sauropod dinosaur named "Diplodocus". Every bone found helps us better understand the great history of our planet and will be kept, prepared and preserved for future generations, which is the mission of the Cincinnati Museum Center. Knowledge is to be shared and passed on. Quality specimens like the ones at Mother's Day will be available to those who come after us, so that they may further what is known today. The land that we dig on is Federal Property and is managed by the Federal Bureau of Land Management. In the past month officials have checked in on us and they will keep an eye on the Mother's Day Site to make sure that next summer's exploration will continue.

Please keep looking for new blog entries as I plan to post many more. We now begin the long journey home to Cincinnati with great expectations for 2011.

The Crew

Wildlife in Abundance

We have seen many different animals on our trip from Cincinnati to Bridger. Below is a list of the ones we could identify.

Dan***

American Pipit, Barn Swallow, Black Billed Magpie, Black Capped Chickadee, Blue Jay, Bobcat, Box Turtle, Brewers Black Bird, Brewers Sparrow, Brown Headed Cowbird, Bullock’s Oriole, Canada Goose, Cardinal, Carolina Chickadee, Chipmunk, Chipping Sparrow, Chucker, Clark’s Nutcracker, Common Nighthawk, Common Poor Will, Coyote, Crow, Double Crested Cormorant, Dusky Grouse, Eastern Bluebird, Eastern Green Racer, Eastern King Bird Eastern Meadowlark, Elk, Goldfinch, Grackle, Great Blue Heron, Great Horned Owl, Great Tailed Grackle, Green Heron, Green Tailed Towhee, Hairy Woodpecker, Hawks, Horned Lark, Horned Toad, House Finch, House Sparrow, House Wren, Jackalope, Jackrabbit, Kangaroo Rat, Kestrel, Killdeer, Lager Headed Shrike, Lark Sparrow, Long Billed Curlew, Lots of Little Lizards, Mice, Mice, Mice, Mountain Chickadee, Mourning Dove, Mule Deer Northern Harrier, Northern Red Shafted Flicker, Orchard Oriole, Pika, Pine Siskin, Pink Sided Junco, Pinyon Jay, Prairie Dog, Prairie Rattlesnake, Pronghorn Antelope, Raccoon, Raven, Red Breasted Nuthatch, Red Tailed Hawk, Redwing Blackbird, Ring Billed Gull, Ring Necked Pheasant, Robin, Rock Dove, Ruby Crowned Kinglet, Ruddy Duck, Rufus Sided Hummingbird, Sandhill Crane, Say’s Phoebe, Scissor Tailed Flycatcher, Sharp Tailed grouse, Short Tailed Weasel, Spotted Towhee, Starling, Titmouse, Townsend’s Solitaire, Turkey Vulture, Upland Sandpiper, Violet Green Swallow, Warbling Vireo, Western Cotton Tail, Western King Bird, Western Meadowlark, White Pelican, Whitetail Deer, Wild Turkey, Wood Rat, Yellow Billed Marmot.

Farewell to Youth

The Third and Final Session is at an end. In the Quarry, the last of the Crew....Lamont, Caleb, Glenn & Son, doggedly persist in the Montana sun; retrieving the last of the season's bones. Any revealed bone must be jacketed or else weather will destroy the fossil. The youth have done well and their help on the dino wheels is much appreciated. We hope they had fun and learned a lot. D'Alecy's femur was plucked on Wednesday, its in great shape packed on the trailer ready to go home to Cincy. On Monday we start to close the site. The work is far from done. Keep checking the blog. There is much more to come.

The Crew

Dino School Alumnus

Sharon McMullen
Dinosaur Field School
7/9-7/26/2010
We miss you.

Journey up the Beartooth Highway

Today our youth group and some of the crew drove into the mountains from desert scrubs to mountain tundra and snow. What a fantastic trip...so beautiful! As we ascended the mountains, Glen told us about the glacial past of the region. At 10,000 feet we stopped to survey the expanding vista around us. Chilly winds buffeted a vast color palette of blossoming flowers as an American Pipit flew about, agitated by our presence. If you ever feel wanderlust, may I suggest a trip along the Beartooth Highway; by far one of the most gorgeous places I have ever been.

Dan***

Montana Outreach

You can take the presenter from the Outreach program but you can't keep the Outreach out of the Presenter. While out here in Montana, Everett Edwards, a local blacksmith and friend of Mother's Day asked if he could bring a few local kids by to dig. With Glenn's permission a few mornings two or three young Montanans stop buy to pick, chisel and collect float. Their enthusiasm and patience is outstanding. Having this opportunity to teach kids in an active dino quarry is one of the most fun things I have ever done as an educator.

Dan***





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Youth Week - Work Complete

Our youth week kids are in town and we have them working on ribs and caudals. Still lots of bones to get out before we close down the site. Message to their Moms and Dads: "we will not work them too hard." The Crew has dwindled to 4.....Mac, Caleb, Lamont and Dan. It feels like some goofy reality TV show except the people who get voted out get a shower.....lucky! We will keep on digging. We have plastered up or collected 147 bones. Good work!

The Crew

The Funny Bone

Toward the bottom of the quarry we found an odd bone. During the last few days there has been much speculation in regard to its owner. Mother's Day for the most part is 99% Diplodocus in nature. In the past 11 years of digging we have produced all Diplodocus except the occasional Allosaurus tooth. This strange bone has features of an Allosaurus' scapula or shoulder blade. This would be tremendous and give us a better understanding of how these dinosaurs met their end. We will not know until we completely uncover it. We may not even know until we get it back to the lab. The other possibility of its identification is that it may be a small pubic element of a very young Diplodocus. Let's hope its an Allosaurus! :)

The Crew

We Will Miss You

Our 2nd week guests are rounding for home. They have been covered in dust, baked in the sun and hopefully given the experience of great adventure we feel with every bone found. Session Two's help in the collection of bone and skin has definitely furthered our research on the taxonomy of Mother's Day. The Mother's Day Quarry is a teacher serving up lessons every day on ancient life, camaraderie and teamwork. The satisfaction of hard work done is felt everyday. Femurs may be in rock too hard to break yet our chisels never stop. Jackets seemingly too heavy to lift from the ground are collected with the muscle power of crew. We strive with a collective will in the pursuit of knowledge.

The Crew

Paleo-Porkrinds

During the last few days we have found a good amount of preserved dinosaur skin. This skin gives us a glimpse of how these creatures may have looked. Dinosaur skin was not scaly or overlaping. It was more like the skin of a Monitor Lizard....rough and bumpy. When good pieces of skin are found the texture and skin patterns can be imagined. Color is always something else people have thought about as well. There is new research being done that could provide a few answers on color. Good skin samples may contain remnants of chromatophores or pigment cell remains. By studying the shape and size of these cells and comparing them to modern animals we someday could be able to know what color dinosaurs were.

The Crew

We will miss you Mike, Sara and Mark.

Goodbye messages for Sara Oser

"The day after you left the blue pack frame died." -Mackenzie
"Please come back I'm the only girl." -Sharon
"Its not a tibularum." -Caleb
"Where is your hat so I can take it." -Lamont
"What a gusher. Lots of mountain lions even more paper cows. Please next time lean your head back." -Dan

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Goodbye messages for Mike Papp

"Now I have all the leftovers to myself." -Mackenzie
"Mike you were not the only one in camp that snores (Dan)." -Sharon
"I miss your jokes, you are a funny guy. "-Caleb
"Thank you for the fossilized pearls." -Lamont
"Your knowledge is beyond compare. Did you ever change your underwear?" -Dan

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Goodbye messages for Mark Aull

"Your Plane was the hottest thing in Camp." -Mackenzie
"Your last name is the same as one of the tools we use in the Quarry." -Sharon
"Yo, man that was a Jerusalem Cricket." -Caleb
"I found your yucca, you forgot it." -Lamont
"Your old man hat is the bomb." -Dan