Dino Blog

Day 5 of the teacher dig arrived with cloudy skies.  The clouds cleared quickly and the heat and humidity made it one of the hottest digging days.

As the teachers continued digging, more bones were found.  William was very busy helping map the finds, pulling them out of the ground, and wrapping them for safe transport back to the museum.

Everyone continued to dig in to the walls and bring them down.  Another nano T-Rex tooth was found – that brings the count to 3 for the year.  As the diggers worked to get the found bones out of the ground, they continued to discover other bones.  A tibia and a fibula were found today and are in a criss-cross position, one on top of the other.  Despite the best digging efforts, they had to be left in the ground.  The guys will finish digging them out after we are gone.  

The day moved by pretty quickly and before we knew it, it was time to clean up for the last time.  Everyone was reluctant to pack it in for the year.  Digging takes a lot of patience and when something is found, the finder wants get it out of the ground.  It was hard to leave the bones behind.

After we got back to town, Rick continued some lessons with the new diggers.  They had the chance to do some casting – an edmontosaurus toe bone and a T-Rex tooth. 

All the teachers made their way to the local restaurant, Chances Are, for our last Faith dinner.  Everyone looks different after the layers of dirt have been removed at the end of the day. 

Dallas and William will stay at the site for another week and work to get the exposed bones out of the ground.  Then they will make their way back to Indiana, with all of the discovered bones. 

We’ll see you next year!

The weather cooperated with the diggers today – partly cloudy and in the 80s with a breeze.  Perfect day for digging and it was a busy one.

The first time dig teachers joined the returning teachers at the dig site today.  There are 6 new diggers, and they got right in there for their chance to find a bone.  The new diggers were paired up with experienced diggers so they could learn the ropes.  We have quite a wealth of experience on the dig this year – 11 returning diggers with 38 years of collective Children’s Museum dig experience between them.  Wow!  They have spent a lot of time searching for bones.

The new diggers are eager to talk with the returners to learn how they incorporate dinosaurs and their dig trips into their classrooms.  Each teacher uses the knowledge they have gained on the dig in a different way.  The conversations will continue on the Teacher Community of Inquiry after the 2010 dig is completed.

Some of the larger bones found earlier in the dig need to be uncovered so that field jackets can be applied before they can be removed from the ground.  This requires a lot of work as the earth above and behind the bones must be removed.  Several diggers spent a good portion of their day bringing down the walls of dirt.  Often, when the walls come tumbling down other bones are discovered in the wall. 

Dallas and William – “the paleo guys” were busy today recording, mapping, and pulling bones out of the ground.  The bone count for Monday was 23 – among them a nano tooth!  This is the second nano tooth found this year and is from the Nanotryannus (‘dwarf tyrant’) a genus of tyrannosaurid dinosaur, and is possibly a juvenile specimen of Tyrannosaurus.  One of the other unique bones found today was a coudal vertebra with part of the spine still attached.  Several other bones had field jackets applied and will be removed from the ground in the morning.

The teachers have one more day of digging and then we’ll have to say goodbye until next year.

The teachers continue to uncover bone after bone at the dig site.  We arrive at the site each morning and everyone grabs their tools and they get right to work.  Occasionally it doesn’t take long to hear that clink of the knife against the bone.  It’s an unmistakable sound and is exciting to see what the dirt will reveal. 

The site has revealed a variety of bones over the past few days.  Many of these have been carefully mapped, removed, and packaged for safe transport back to The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.  Other bones remain in the ground – they either need to continue to be uncovered or need a field jacket on them before they are removed.

 The teachers have found the following bones:

• Maxilla – jaw
• Squamosal – skull
• Fibulas – leg
• Tibias – leg
• Jugals – cheek
• Neural arch – vertebra
• Scapula – shoulder blade
• Ribs

In addition to the Edmontosaurus bones that have been found, some microfossils have been found – gastropods, gar fish scales.  Amber, teeth and tendons continue to show up as the teachers work to reveal the bones.

On Saturday night, a group of the teachers decided to experience some of the local culture.  They climbed back in to the van for a short trip to Dupree, South Dakota.  They attended the Dupree Pioneer Days 2010 rodeo where they watched traditional rodeo competitions. 

Sunday brought the arrival of a cold front and temps were around 50 degrees as we headed to the dig site.  The cold front also brought clouds with the cooler temperature and we watched the rain clouds roll in throughout the day.  It started sprinkling just before we headed back to the ranch for lunch and then became heavier as we headed back to the site for the afternoon.  We were able to get in another hour or so of digging before we had to call it a day.  We headed back to town and met up with the group of new dig teachers at the hotel.  It stopped raining by that time and we headed out to the site where Bucky, the teenage T-rex was found and spent some time doing some surface collecting.  Everyone found something – fossilized sequoia, bone fragments, interesting rocks, and petrified wood.

We are hoping for cool temperatures and clear skies for our final two days of digging.

The families have finished their dig experiences and the teachers began digging today.

Two groups of teacher diggers are in South Dakota.  One group is comprised of 6 teachers and they are new diggers.  This means they haven’t participated in a Children’s Museum dig in the past.  Rick Crosslin met them in the Rapid City airport today and they are off to several adventures in Hill City, South Dakota.  They will spend time at The Journey Museum, The Mammoth Site, the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, and the Badlands National Park.  After they have been fully immersed in the world of paleontology, they will head to the dig site in Faith where they will dig for two days.

The other group is comprised of 11 teachers and they are returning diggers.  These teachers have all participated in a Children’s Museum dig in the past and they are returning to dig for 5 days.  Yep, 5 days!  They have a passion for digging dinos.  Many of the teachers in this group can also be seen volunteering in the Paleo Prep Lab at the museum.

The day began at 8 am as we loaded the van and headed to the ranch.  Once we arrived at the site, everyone found a spot and began digging.  Everyone worked hard and quite a few bones were uncovered throughout the day.  Some of them were mapped and removed.  Others remain in the ground and will continue to be uncovered in the next few days.

We were able to remove 5 bones today –a Neural Arch and a Neural Spine along with a Quadrate (skull bone,) a rib, and a Chevron, which is part of the tail.  All of these bones are from Edmonstosaurus annectens – a genus of crestless duck-billed dinosaur.

One of the great finds of the day currently contains 6 different bones, some on top of the others and some located nearby.  Check back for details on what bones are there and what others might be uncovered.

Sunny days are here again so we headed out to the site with van loads of excited families.  Luckily, some of the families who were with us the day before at the Black Hills Institute had signed up for 2 days of digging and so they were able to still get some dig-time in.  We started out with the usual surface collecting and even though this is done every day, it never ceases to amaze us what is found in the very places we’re so used to looking!  Today was especially surprising because 10-year old Joshua found a 65-million year old crocodile tooth!

Once we got to the site and down to digging, the day seemed to pass quickly.  The museum staff was quite busy going from one digger to the next, as they uncovered a great number of bones.  It almost seemed like they were making up for lost time and a day of digging missed as Mike and Kate uncovered 5, and Ashley and Laura uncovered 5 or 6!  Once again, not all of the finds were able to be unearthed by the end of the digging day as several were large enough that they needed to be jacketed and plastered – a process that takes at least 24 hours to complete.  All of the bones are carefully wrapped and mapped before they are transported back to the lab for further research.

As you can see from the group shot below, our Day 6 Diggers were in great (and silly) spirits when the day came to an end.  They worked hard and had fun, and everyone came away from the site with their name on something.  Only one day left of digging with the families and then Melissa and Rick will be arriving with the teachers!

We awoke to Day 5 with gray skies and rain.  Once we got confirmation from the ranch owners that our roads out to the site were unnavigable, we implemented ‘Plan B’.  Plan B was a trip down to Hill City for a behind-the-scenes look at The Black Hills Institute of Geological Research.  There we received an exclusive tour, given by Pete Larson who is most famous for the excavation of Sue the T.rex.  He took us where few others are able to go:  Into the labs, the paint shops, and where the molding and casting of all their specimens take place.

Pictured above is an impression of fossilized Triceratops skin!   This fossil skin was found with an amazing Triceratops dinosaur nicknamed LANE.

This is a Brachylophosaurus that was found in Moulton, Montana.  They call him a ‘Mummy Dino’ due to how intact he was upon discovery.  This one is interesting because scientists could see that he was ‘T.rex food’ due to healed bite wounds discovered along the top side.

When we’re out at our site digging, it can sometimes be difficult to imagine what our fossils might have looked like, all put together 65 million years ago.  Fossilized ribs and tendons are common finds for us so for those folks who have been digging with us, this an especially cool specimen to view up close because it’s easy to see the ribs and tendons in tact.

All in all it was a good day with a lots of cool discoveries and family learning.  We were happy and privileged that Pete took us on the tour and he answered lots of questions from the eager young minds of some budding paleontologists.  Our families are pictured above with Pete with the original STAN the T.rex.

One of the best things about digging is the fact that once your digging tool hits the dirt you have no idea what you’re going to find.  The recognizable ‘crunch’ that’s heard when metal meets fossil is just enough to produce tiny little goosebumps and a quick rush that can only come when you know that you’ve found something.   What that something is takes time to uncover and often times is not what it seems at first.  A quarter of an inch of exposed fossil could be anything from fossilized tendon, to parts of a skull, a toe, or something bigger like a femur or fibula.  That being said, today’s ‘big finds’ did not necessarily come from new finds, but they actually came from previous finds which were as of today, redefined.  As Day 4 diggers continued to work on fossils left by Day 2, some suprising discoveries were made…

Surprise # 1: We would like to officially change the classification of Friday’s Scapula to a pubis bone – one of the pelvic or hip bones.  This was discovered as the size of the scapula increased while it was being uncovered by a series of folks over the past couple of days.  Today it was Sean, Jordan and Jayne who did the final unearthing.  You see, digging is a collaborative effort.  It might take one person to find a bone but it could possibly take a small village to unearth it.

Surprise # 2: Today’s digging also uncovered more – and finally the end of – Friday’s tibia.  Or so we thought.  Once again, we would like to change that classification to a large fibula.  We’re talking a 3 ½ to 4 foot fibula folks and it’s awesome.  Even cooler was the fact that as the fibula was being uncovered, another ‘very large bone’ seemed to be hiding behind it.  Stay tuned to see how that one unfolds.

As always, we’re crossing our digits that the blue skies and cool breezes keep up the good work.   We could not dig without them.

Happy 4th of July from Faith!