Paleontology at Ghost Ranch

What do Indiana Jones, Canadian TV crews, dinosaurs, graduate students, geologists, paleontologists, documentary film makers, bug spray, rattlesnakes, and sunny days all have in common?

They all converge at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. As we were arriving for our seminar, we learned that a film crew for the 4th Indiana Jones movie had just wrapped up. Darn! I would love to have seen Harrison Ford!


This week, Shannon (above) and I joined a small group of other like-minded individuals to experience Paleontology at Ghost Ranch, a week long seminar that involves excavating Triassic era dinosaur bones from the Chinle formation at Hayden Quarry.


And here's the rest of our group, carefully taking off thin layers of sediment to reveal black gold; which in this case would be bone, tooth, armor plate, or coprolite (petrified poo).


Nate (above) is one of the resident grad students. Here he sits above one of his finds, which he's just about to jacket before transporting it back to the lab. Next to Nate is Christy, who took a week off from her work at the Petrified Forest to assist in the dig.


At lunch time, Shannon and I took a hike to the stream to pick up one of the canopies. We brought it back and, with the help of fellow seminar attendee Barb, set it up for some much-needed shade.


When one of us finds something "good," we call the grad students over for a consultation. Randy (from UC Berkley) and Nate (from the Univ. of Chicago) explain to Anita (striped shirt) what she's found.


And in the midst of this, a film crew from Canada showed up to take some footage of our work, interview Alex (our fearless leader, and curator of the Paleontology Museum at Ghost Ranch), and talk with the grad students. Canadians are so cool. They have a DAILY science program on their public television network! I'm so envious.


Shortly after the Canadians left, my friends Pat and Melinda from Convivial Design Studio arrived to take some documentary footage of the site, and to interview everyone. Melinda warned us of a rattlesnake down by the stream, so we were hypervigilant on the way back to the lab. I don't have any photos of Pat & Melinda (a.k.a. the Design Divas), because I was too busy catching up with them to grab my camera.


Anita (above) sits proudly next to her jacketed dino bone. She's found some great stuff this week. Barb has also found several REALLY COOL pieces. I'll try to get some photos of her with her finds before the seminar ends . . .


And when we're not bent over the dig with our tails in the air, we can turn around to see this gorgeous view. If you were to put these three photos together, left to right, you'd see the panoramic view. It's absolutely breathtaking!


Each day, we work from about 8:30 a.m. to about 1:00 p.m. Then we take a lunch break (and rest break!) and meet back up in the evening. Once our bellies are full, and we're rested, we work in the lab until quite late--cleaning and cataloging everything that we found in the field earlier in the day.


Shannon (below) is cleaning the sediment away from some bones that she found. Once everything is cleaned (very time consuming), we often need to glue pieces back together. They're very fragile and break easily. Also, most of the bones are in pieces when we find them.


Below you can see some of what Shannon has ben working on . . .


And then some of the things that I uncovered out in the field: a scute, bone fragments, a vertebra, coprolite, tooth, and a partial metatarsal . . .


He's a close up of the scute I found. I'm not sure where the term "scute" comes from. It's not the official name of this fossil. Perhaps they call it a scute because it's scute :)


And finally, a photo of a couple of yet-unknown things--still in situ. Once I've had a chance to fully uncover them, take them back to the lab, clean them up, and identify them, I'll post more photos!