Last
month we had the opportunity to dig for dinosaur bones at the Dana Quarry in
Wyoming. We were invited by a dear friend of ours, Kirby Siber, owner of the
Saurier Museum Aathal in Switzerland, and world renowned paleontologist. You wouldn’t think two people who have spent
most of our lives digging rocks would have been so excited for this
opportunity. But I have to say it was
quite and adventure. Even if we didn’t
get to keep any of our finds!
The
Dana Quarry site was discovered more than 15 years ago by Kenneth Tanner. It is located on his property near the tiny
town of Ten Sleep, in Wyoming, where ancient sand and mudstone deposits form
the Morrison Formation date back to the late Jurassic Period approximately 150
million years ago. Though the quarry
isn’t very large, over a dozen individual virtually complete dinosaur skeletons
representing a variety of species have been recovered there. These species include: Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Amphicoelias,
Camarasaurus, Allosaurus, Ornitholestes, Coelurus, Elaphrosaurus, Torvosaurus,
Ceratosaurus, Othnielosaurus, Camptosaurus, and Stegosaurus.
Digging
dinosaur bones is obvious hard and tedious work. You have to be very careful as you remove the
dirt less you accidently chisel into a bone.
All of the bones are carefully removed, glued, labeled and wrapped
either in tinfoil or in plaster cast; so that they can be sent to the
laboratory where they are painstakingly repaired and reconstructed to try to
get as complete a skeleton as possible.
Afterwards we took a dip in a freezing river and Art went off to hunt
fish with his crossbow.
For
Bruce the highlight of the trip was when he and Kirby pulled a vertebra out
together. But for me the most
interesting part was when we took a lunch break with us two Americans, Kirby
(Swiss), a Belguim, a Serbian, and a Dutch man. As we discussed the universal problems faced
by young people today; economics, drugs, lack of ambition and lack of respect
for anything, it was never so apparent what a small world we live in!
See us at www.oakrocks.net for fossils for sale. And Happy Hunting!
