Cracking Rock..Finding Bone

Group 2 has been in Montana since Sunday and has brought awesome weather. Lots of bones are being prepared for removal. With each successful jacketing, more bones appear in all locations. One of our more interesting bones at the site is a large femur, almost a meter long! This is an uncommon bone to find given that it is from a sub-adult, a teenager if you will. Sam and Stephen D'Alecy from the 1st Session started on it but were unable to pop it out before they left...tears. Sharon is keeping vigilant on the femur and with the help of Stephen Hendricks we all hope to have it safely wrapped by end of week.

The Crew

Dust to Dust

Session 1 has drawn to an end. Time to brush off the dust and say so long to our great participants. Adios Janet and Songbird Kelly, See ya Sam Wise & Stephen, Later Bishop Boys, Mr. Moore we hardly knew ya and Chris and Michelle Our Belle.......Safe Journeys. Thank you so much for the cookies and conversations. The Crew hopes you had a wonderful time in "Paleoland" and that your time spent in Montana was enjoyable and education filled. Remember, Science is Exploration and it stretches to the horizon. Never stop looking for what's over the next rocky ridge. Thanks again and Stay safe.

The Crew

Summer Camp

Dear Mom and Dad,
Camp is fun. We are doing lots of fun things. Yesterday, my friend Caleb found a Caudal Bone from the tail of a Sauropod Dinosaur. It was sooooooooooo cool! The food is good, but I hate doing dishes....we all do. Sleeping in a tent is fun and uncomfortable. At night we all lay out on the trailer and stare up at the Milky Way. It's sooooo beautiful out here away from the city lights. I counted ten shooting stars last night. Well, have to go, wish you were here!

-Dino School

Session 1 = Lots of Fun!

Our first group has arrived and is settling in to their "Paleo-Lifestyle". The group is a mix of newbies and experienced people who have been with us before. The Quarry is full of people and the sounds of chisel and rock hammers. On Monday, Sam D'Alecy helped pull out an ungual/claw, her first of many bones to come we hope. Shade is at a premium as the sun sizzles above. Spirits remain high as we excavate the tremendous abundance of the Mother's Day site.

Dan***

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!