A Tale of Two Tails

On Saturday the crew was permitted to collect on private land and we were not disappointed with our discoveries. Glenn found a well-preserved Tenontosaurus tail. He spent much of the day retrieving it from the bentonite wasteland we were prospecting. Bentonite is an expanding clay left over from volcanic ash that fell and collected. When this clay gets wet it expands lifting and cracking any rock around it. As Glenn went about his work, Mack English fell upon what we believe to be a second Tenontosaurus tail some 200 yards from Glenn's site. We plan on going back to Mack's area with hopes of finding more of the animal, locked in the hard bentonite ground.





All of these "tails" aside the coolest of the cool finds were two small teeth from different animals. The first was from a dinosaur called Sauropelta. Its tooth was as small as a dime, hard to find and perfectly preserved. The other tooth was from a Lungfish. These two small teeth found by Mr. Papp earned him a "Golden Bronto"......Good Eyes!

Dan***

Closer look at the skull.

It 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.



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***

Check out the Cincinnati Museum Center Dinosaur Field School Facebook page!

Full Diplodocus Skull Found!

NEWS FLASH!!

The find earlier today turned out to be a full skull with 3 associated vertebrae. Best Mother's Day find ever! Dr. Glenn Storr's wins a "Golden Bronto!" More detail to follow.

Remnant of Young Diplodocus Found

Wednesday before lunch Lamont Meadows stumbled upon a bit of skull. Skull material is hard to find because of the fragility of the bone itself. Thin and delicate things easly disintegrate and are often lost. This bit of skull is from the bottom of the head where it attaches to the vertibral column. Look closely at the photo and you can see a round piece of bone. That is the occipital condyle where the first vertibrae in this Diplodocus's neck, called an Atlas would have attached. We are guessing that this particular Diplodocus had a head about the size of a football.




Good job Lamont! This is only the 3rd partial skull found at Mother's Day Quarry and has earned you your second "Golden Bronto."

Dan***

Arrival

The camp is set up and the dig location is tarped and ready for removal of our sauropod deposit. The next few days will be shovels and filled buckets . A few bones can be seen exposed already like this radius; if you look closely to the right you can see a small round stone we believe to be a gastrolith in-situ. This means that the bone and the small pebble were deposited at the same time, Gastroliths are believed to help some kinds of dinosaurs digest food like birds do today.







Thanks
for checking in..
DAN***

Friends of the Museum

Pete Bussen, Mike Everhart, and Dr. Glenn Storrs.
Pete Bussen is a private collector and preparer of fossils who has donated specimens to the CMS. Mike Everhart is the Adjunct Curator at the Sternburg Museum.

Kansas Days

Our long trip out west stretches behind us with every mile marker. Conversations of ancient animals like Mosasaurus, Xiphactinus, and Ichthaelurus fill the van as we made our way through Kansas to meet Mike Everhart and Pete Bussen. Mike Everhart, the Adjunct Curator at the Sternburg Museum, was gracious enough to take us to see some wonderful sights in Kansas near Wallace. On July 1st we went to Carter Place and on the 2nd to Coal Oil Canyon. Both places produced many fish vertabrae as well as Mosasaurus bits and pieces. At Carter Place Sara Oser found a lovely Mosasaurus tooth which earned her the first "Golden Bronto" award. Our trip to Coal Oil Canyon produced much of the same types of specimens however, the highlight of the day was meetingPete Bussen, a seasoned Kansas Fossil Hunter. He told us many great stories about his years of collecting and showed us his fossil barn. Over the years, Pete has given us wonderful fossil specimens such as, a Xiphactinus fish and a Mosasaurus skull which can be found in the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History. Kansas is one of those places where you need to get out of your car and poke around the chalk to truly appreciate it.

Dan***

Locked and loaded..

We are set...all that is left to do is buy some soda pop. Today the crew assembled and loaded all our provisions for our trek to the Mother's day site. Mack English, Mike Papp, Sara Oser, Mike Aull, Lamont Meadows, Caleb Flum and myself worked with Oompa Loompa like precision to load the trailer and truck. This crew is a fine crew that will do great things. We head out Wednesday, the sun at our backs heading west with tremendous expectation. Please keep us in mind as you face evening sky this July knowing that somewhere in the high sage of Montana your 2010 Cincinnati Museum Center Dino Crew is working hard.

Dan***

One week out…

The last minute fires are now embers… (I hope) and all that is left to do is load up. The crew will gather on June 28th for a loading party at Geier Center under the watchful eyes of Dr. Storrs. I would like to thank all the folks at the museum that have helped over the last few months. There is no way I could have done it without your wisdom and patience. A special thanks to my boss Karen Venetian for letting my inner 11 year old boy have the opportunity to dig up dinosaurs.

Beneath the earth, lost to time, fantastic creatures await, our picks, trawls and sweat of our brow.

Dan***

Just about ready..

Things are progressing nicely and we should be ready to go June 30th. Yesterday Jason Denison was nice enough to help us gather food and provisions for the trip THANKS JASON!!! We got most of what we needed but still have a few odds and ends to pull together before we go.

For those who are curious on which way we are heading out. Glenn and I have decided on the Kansas route. Our 1st day is Cincinnati to Lawrence Kansas. The 2nd day we arrive at Wallace Kansas were we will deliver a fossil shark to a local colleague. The rest of that day and the next will be spent exploring the chalk deposits for Mosasaurs and I hope maybe a Hesperornis! ;) On the 3rd of July we will reach Casper Wyoming for our last On-the-road camp out. Waking up on the 4th of July we will push on to the dig sight and set up base camp.

Thanks for Checking In
Dan***

Get Ready for Dino Field School

Hello all. It’s that lovely time of year again. Things are going superb and preparations for the 2010 Cincinnati Museum Center Dino Field School is on schedule. Let me introduce myself. My name is Dan Striley my current position at CMC is Science Coordinator for Outreach. My job takes me all around Cincinnati and the surrounding region. I teach preschoolers to high schools students about how fantastic science can be. I am very exited about being Dr Glenn Storrs' site manager this year and getting this opportunity to learn about Geology, Paleontology, and the natural world. Please check in from time to time to see how is treating the crew and me and with a little hard work and a bit of luck maybe wonderful things will be uncovered.

Thanks for checking in
Dan Striley

Cincinnati Museum Center's next adventure!

We arrived in Cincinnati safe and sound on Saturday and unpacked gear and field jackets. While the crew is catching up on their sleep, we are preparing for Cincinnati Museum Center's next adventure...

An Excursion to Ecuador

January 10-20, 2010! Join Herman L. Mays, Jr., Ph.D., Curator of Zoology on a birding expedition of a lifetime in the Ecuadorian rain forests. Space is limited, adventure seekers wanted.

For more information, please visit our website: www.cincymuseum.org

Hope to see you in Ecuador!

The Plesiosaur has landed

The Plesiosaur has made it safely onto the trailer! This was the largest of the field jackets removed from the site. There were a lot of crossed fingers but everything went according to plan.
Now, with one site closed, the entire crew will tackle the Mother's Day site tomorrow. Before we close for the season, the following still needs to take place:

• Two bones need to be jacketed
  
• The edges of the site must be contoured with fill to prevent looting and erosion
  
• Haul all the tools and supplies off of the site
• Strap the remaining field jackets to day packs for the trip down to camp
  
• Carefully pack the van and truck using up every available space
  
• Strap down everything that rests on the trailer
  
• And then, just then, will the site be closed for the season

If all goes well, we will leave Wednesday bright and early and arrive in Cincinnati on Friday and unload on Saturday.

Hold your breath and flip

When you find a bone in the quarry you become the "protector" of that bone, taking every caution and even tuck it under a tarp every night. Each hour in the quarry, you get closer and closer to that dreaded moment when you actually have to flip the top of the field jacket. When you flip, the bone and the matrix below should come out as one unit. Even if you have done everything right, there is always the fear that the actually flipping of the bone will go horribly wrong. It is like flipping a bundt cake onto a plate. You cross you fingers, take a deep breath and hope you greased the pan well enough.

On Friday, I flipped a beautiful humerus that I had been fretting over. The matrix stayed in the ground exposing the perfect bone. It was a proud milestone.



Later that day, a vertebra was not so lucky. When you trench, you guess how far the bone goes into the ground. This trench wasn't deep enough and after the flip, half was in the jacket and half was still in the ground. When this happens you fly into surgeon mode armed with glue and a chisel. We eventually got out the remainder and enclosed it in toilet paper, aluminum foil and then plaster. It will be pieced back together in the lab.

We still have a few more jackets to go before we can officially close up the site for the season and head back to Cincinnati Museum Center.

Plesiosaur skull has been found!

Yes, the Plesiosaur skull was found today and the whole crew couldn't be happier! The joy was short lived for it was followed shortly by hail...

The youth volunteers returned to Cincinnati last night and now we are in crunch mode to remove all the fossils that are exposed at both sites within the week. It may sound like an easy task, however, the curse of the Mother's Day Site is to find a bone, expose it, trench around it and then discover another bone in your way. Our crew now consists of very few members but we are determined to close up the site in good time.

Plesiosaur Update!

Dr. Storrs, William and Sharon worked the Plesiosaur site this week. The black shale that houses the skeleton is very dense and is the same color as the bones. A large, clear sheet of plastic has been laid over the site and each bone will be outlined and numbered to map their location. Removal of the bones has also started, large sections will soon need field jackets.Today, a professor from the University of Houston visited Mother's Day to evaluate the sediment for future ground penetrating radar analysis! This will occur after we close the site for the season and if it works, it would be a tremendous help in locating bones in the coming years. Fingers crossed!!!

A picture can say a thousand words

The youth are coming! The youth are coming!

Apologies for the gap in posts. As of Sunday, I'm camping back at Mother's Day and livin' off the grid. Take note: wi-fi can not be achieved by harnessing the speed of Montana jack rabbits and solar power.

Youth moms and dads rest easy, your daughters arrived safe and sound on Sunday with their chaperones (pictured below) and have been a joy in the quarry. So far, they have carefully removed a rib and as I type they are undercutting and flipping a field jacket containing a cervical vertebrae and two ribs!Youth volunteers are a vital part of Cincinnati Museum Center. From running hands-on-demos in all three museums to interpreting exhibits for visitors, they are a wealth of knowledge. So, if you ever meet one at Museum Center, take a moment and let them "wow" you. I had the privilege to work with this group of young adults during my first year and I'm still proud to call them staff.

If you know a tri-state teen who would like to join our Youth Program next summer, please visit our website for more information.

Pictures from Week 2

Week 2 group outside the main lodge at YBRA.








Betsy starting her field jacket.







Dinosaurs Unearthed product placement. Thanks Brian!








Future paleontologists enjoying the pig races.









The Dino Wheel. Part gurney, part muscle.