A QUARRY
Part Six of The Jurassic Journals

The last two days of the dig, Pete reassigned us from the gruelingly fruitless F Quarry to the bountiful A Quarry. My first assignment was cleaning up a bit of camarasaurus vertebra recently unearthed by the bobcat tractor.

The Faileontologists' response to being reassigned to A Quarry:

One day, after returning to the mess hall after a long day of digging, we came upon a crowd gathered around Matt Seney (the dude facing camera, in front of the van).

He had found a baby rattlesnake and was handling it with a hook in one hand while smoking a cigarette in the other. Matt used to work at a local theme park called Reptile Gardens. He informed us that, while baby rattlers are dangerous, it is a myth that they inject more venom than an adult. They inject a higher percentage of their venom, but because they have smaller venom reserves to begin with, a high percentage of their venom is about as much as a small percent of the adults'.

Matt also caught a scorpion. He showed us how the dromopods glow in the dark under a black light. Matt was quickly becoming my hero. Later, while a group of us were playing paleo-poker in the mess hall, we heard Matt utter, "Oops." We turned around to find him holding an empty cup and squinting at the gravel on the ground. We played the rest of the hand standing on our benches.

Every bench, table, outhouse, and shower stall was covered in graffiti. Here's my contribution.

Zack, Brandon, UK students Holly and Amar, and I decided to take a break from the dig and head into Hulett, Wyoming for some R'n'R. Our first stop was a local dive called the Ponderosa Bar. We played Thriller on the juke box in Michael Jackson's honor, and were amused to see two of the older local gals doing the zombie dance at the bar.

Zack and I tought the brits how to play Purple Rain, the greatest game since Telephone Pictionary.

We decided to visit Devil's Tower at night in hopes of spotting a spacecraft. We brought some Wild Blue, a blueberry-flavored beer and local favorite. After your first sip of Wild Blue, you smile and exclaim, "Tastes like a muffin!" By the end of the bottle, you're frowning and staring at the remaining dregs of beer as you mutter, "Tastes like a muffin." Honestly, when's the last time you felt the urge to dunk your blueberry muffin in beer? Despite the other-worldly flavor of our booze, there were no extra-terrestrials to be found. Still, it was an awesome experience, I could almost hear the John Williams.

Back to business! I make my most important discovery on the dig: a small theropod toe bone! Since theropods (being carnivores) are rarer than herbivores, and a toe-bone indicating the possibility of a body close-at-hand, Pete said this find earned me "the right to come back next year."

And Greg finds a ginormous camarasaurus toe claw, which makes him an instant legend. Pete says Greg definitely earned the right to come back next year as well. A Quarry rocks.

"Don't mess with me, man. I'm a scientist."

Tune in next week for the stunning conclusion of The Jurassic Journals:
Everything Prehistoric
OR
The Storm

F QUARRY
Part Five of The Jurassic Journals

"Grant's like me...he's a digger."

The Waugh dig is a collection of quarries working their way into the Morrison formation, hunting the titans of the Jurassic Era. These quarries are labeled A-K, and carefully plotted on a map as each site is developed. Pictured above are the Pixar paleontologists (from left): Chuck Waite, Brandon Hyman, Greg Dykstra, Zack Keller, and me. We were assigned to F Quarry, where we were supervized by seventeen year-old veteran dino hunter Kyle Lindsey. Below, Kyle (left) helps Zack uncover a new find.

While Greg got straight to work, Kyle taught us rookies how to 1) know a fossil when we saw one, and 2) carefully excavate said fossil from the surrounding rock matrix using exactoblades, brushes, and paleo-bond (a sort of superglue used to repair fractured fossils). Below are (from left to right): BHI staffer Matt Seney, Greg Dykstra, Kyle Linsdey, Chuck Waite, BHI staffer Sam (I forget his last name), Oguchi Shota, and (on the ground in front), me and Brandon Hyman.

After hours of toil with no bones to show for our efforts, we began to come up with new F-names for our quarry (Fruitless-, Frustrating-, and just plain Fucked Quarry were among the favorites).

We were also lovingly christened as "Faileontologists" by the other diggers, particularly those in A Quarry, who were unearthing all the good stuff. I'm pretty sure the A stood for Astounding-, Awesome-, Amazing-, and Allosaur-Teeth-Everywhere Quarry. Here Pete Larson is uncovering another Admirable A-Quarry find. His daughter, Ella, doesn't seem as impressed as we are.

This gorgeous allosaurus tooth is an example of the fine specimens A Quarry would be uncovering on an hourly basis.

Meanwhile, over at F(ractured fossil) Quarry, we were brushing as carefully as possible around this brittle, oxidized fractured camarasaur bone. Note the bottle to the left; that's paleo-bond, which we kept pouring onto our constantly-breaking bones. On several occassions, Sam even told us not to use the adhesive, that it was worth more (at $10 a bottle) than the specimens we were laboring to recover.

Here I am staring longingly at A Quarry as UK students Holly and Amar dig away.

Greg mentioned that it was the first time at the Waugh dig that he hadn't been assigned to A Quarry, but he dug dutifully with the rest of us faileontologists and shared in our small victories, like Chuck's croc tooth.

The croc tooth was our first flag-able find; diggers flag areas where complete bones are found so that they can be carefully mapped and excavated. Here we are, striking the Iwo Jima pose in honor of our first flag.

And, once again, A Quarry for contrast.

Here's another of F Quarry's small victories, Zack's hypsilophodontid claw.

Zack and I immediately start digging where the hypsolophodontid claw was found. Twelve hours of digging later (I kid you not), after having found absolutely nothing else, we cut our losses, abandon the site, and return to our original dig positions.

At the end of every day, though, we'd be all smiles as we trekked back to the camp site. Covered in dirt, sweat, blisters, and sunburns, but laughing about the endeavors of the day and our small successes. Here we are after the first day when we were too tired to hike and took the truck back.

But don't worry, the Faileontologists had a chance to get even with the A-Diggers every night when we sat down for paleo-poker. Instead of chips, we used belemnites (squid fossils) that we found in the gravel around the mess hall. I came away each week with pockets full of belemnites, feeling quite vindicated.

Next Journal: the faileontologists graduate to A Quarry. Will we find our fortune and glory or remain as empty-handed as before? Stay tuned to the Jurassic Journals to find out!

THE ACTUAL JURASSIC JOURNAL
Part Four of The Jurassic Journals

I'm not much of a journaler. In fact, I've never kept an on-going journal in my entire life (other than reading journals required in English class). However, my memory is lousy and extremely unreliable, and I wanted to remember everything about my first dino trip. So, I decided to keep a journal of my adventure into fossil country. My sketchbook doubled quite nicely as a dino-diary and I was able to catalogue, not only all of my frustrations of finding nothing but dirt for hours on end, but also great quotes from my fellow diggers.

One fella in particular, a fellow newbie named David Bourke, had the greatest quotes and stories. His anecdotes would start with these amazing hooks like, "So I was drinking moonshine at a fiddler's convention..." My favorite quote of David's was when he and I were talking about Disney's Fantasia:

David: "Fantasia was one that I went back and saw in the sixties in a whole different light."

Me: "Because of your appreciation for music?"

David nods, thoughtfully.

David: "Plus I was really high."

The nearly illegible notes on this spread are from a conversation I had with Pete Larson about whether or not dinosaurs reached REM state of sleep and were capable of dreaming. Pete reckons they could based on the fact that birds do.

Most of these sketches are me copying out of Robert Bakker's book The Dinosaur Heresies in an attempt to learn actual dinosaur anatomy.

And, just for fun, here's a picture of a female wolf spider covered with her babies taken by my buddy and fellow digger, Amar Dosanj. Sorta brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it?

THE WAUGH RANCH
Part Three of The Jurassic Journals

Tuesday, July 7

After our short stop at Devil's Tower, Greg, Chuck, Zack, and I high-tailed it on down to Hulett, WY where we were to make our fortunes as bona fide paleontologists at the Waugh Dig.

The first thing that struck me about the dig was the scenery, and in particular the greenery. I expected a dinosaur dig to look a bit more like the one's I'd seen on Jurassic Park and Nova specials: dusty, dry, and treeless. The Waugh ranch, however, was beautiful. Because it sat on a hill, we had a fantastic view of the unspoiled region that spread for miles in each direction. The ponderosas filled the air with the fresh smell of pine and, more importantly, provided ample shade for diggers who needed a break from the heat.

Our mess hall, which quickly became my favorite area of the dig since it meant food and shade.



Here's our camp, which one of the diggers affectionately named "Pixar Plaza."

After Zack had set up his tent, Chuck noticed this little beauty nestled in her hole, just a meter away from his tent-opening. She's a funnel-web, the species of spider Return of the King's monster Schelob is modeled after.

Here's the head of the dig, master dinosaur hunter Pete Larson. You may remember Pete's brother Neil in the first installment of The Jurassic Journals. Fossil hunting runs in the Larson family, Neil's two sons Tim and Matt are also seasoned paleontologists and BHI staff members. We calculated our arrival at the ranch to co-incide with lunchtime, so we got to know Pete and the other diggers for a while before they put us to work for the afternoon.

Our first day of work consisted of training our eyes to spot fossils. Not all of them are as clearly defined as this gorgeous Allosaur tooth (one of many found throughout the week by our new friend, Bob Lindsey). We were assigned to dig through the talus piles (mounds of excess dirt set aside by other diggers) for any fossils the previous diggers might have missed. As you can see, fossils are darker than the dirt around them. They're also smoother, and often have imprints of fibrous marrow-like texture.

Here's a look at the skull this Allosaur tooth belongs to:

DEVIL'S TOWER
Part Two of The Jurassic Journals

Tuesday, July 7

After spending a day at the BHI, consuming some delicious Moose Drool (my new favorite beer), and a good night's sleep, we were ready to start our adventure. We headed out from Hill City along the dusty roads that led into Wyoming. Along the way, we passed Devil's Tower, the famous monument from Close Encounters. Zack and I had a religious experience, blasting John Williams music from our SUV. It was like we had journeyed to the nerd mecca. Pictured above are Greg, Zack, and I, marvelling at the natural wonder of igneous intrusion.

Me with Chuck Waite, a man never short of a funny accent or clever remark.


Greg, Chuck, and Zack soaking in the majesty.

THE BLACK HILLS INSTITUTE
Part One of The Jurassic Journals

The photos from this month's dinosaur dig are finally rolling in. What an amazing adventure, I never thought I could gain an even deeper appreciation for prehistoric life.

Monday, July 6
Zack Keller and I fresh from the plane, ready to hunt some dinosaurs.


Inside the Black Hills Institute's (BHI's) skeleton-building workshop, aptly named Rex Hall.

Pixar sculptor/paleontologist Greg Dykstra with Triceratops skull and newly-printed scan from said skull. The three-dimensional plastic "print-out" is the first of it's kind and a great aid to paleontologists and paleo-artists alike.

The tyrant lizard king, accept no substitutes.


Greg and paleontologist/BHI staffer Neil Larson talk shop.