Thursday, July 08, 2010

Closer look at the skull.

little visitorIt is with great excitement that I announce a tremendous find made possible by all the hard work of those who have been a part of the Mother’s Day excavation in the past 11 years.On Wednesday July 7th, Lamont Meadows found a small piece of skull. This in itself was a good find and we believed this was all we had. However, as Dr. Storr's worked throughout the afternoon, small bits of skull were uncovered piece by piece. By five o'clock we knew that we had found a mostly complete skull, preserved in the Morrison formation. We have the snout, teeth, occipital condyle and many other fragile pieces. This is the best find at Mother’s Day in the 11 years the CMC has worked it and we are so happy to get it so early during this year’s trip. Such a great find takes alot of pressure off the crew, but we will keep on digging and there will surely be more treasures to uncover.

Diplodocus Skull

The skull itself is hard to visualize since it is flattened and twisted. Remarkably, it has 3 vertebrae in-situ, which is tremendous. If you look closely at the photos, even the untrained eye can see the teeth smiling back from near 85 million years ago. I sit here in camp and gaze towards our the quarry, where our great discovery waits, prepped by Dr Storrs, covered in a plaster jacket, ready to be brought home the Cincinnati Museum Center.

Dan***

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