Almost everyone thinks I lost my mind! Morrison Formation Dinosaur Delivery

[Flx]

Hi Fossils Preparation Fans,

 

Last week I received 1900kg of unprepared dinosaur bones in plaster jackets. 

Now my neigborhood thinks I lost my mind and I received a lot of eye-rolling from my wife. However, my two sons (7y and 2.5y old dino fans) and myself think it was an excellent idea to acquire the material. 

 

The fossils have been collected in the upper layers of the Morisson Formation. Location: Moffat County, Colorado

As always when buying unprepared dinosaur bones you do not really know what you get. However, it seems that most material is Apatosaurus (or some other Diplodicoidea) with some small pieces which are likely Allosaurus. I will know more after I started preparing the material. The bone quality and completeness of the bones is ranging from very good to poor according to the seller (what that means I will find out soon).

 

Anyway, this will keep me busy for one or two years. If there is interest I will post a picture once in a while.

 

[caterpillar]

Work ahead for the long winter evenings

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

Definitely looks like more work than I would be able to tackle at this point with our 4.5yo and 6mo. But also looks like an awesome project I could entirely find myself in. Given the chance I'd probably have done the same  As such, very interested to see how you progress 

Edited August 30, 2021 by pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon
Corrected auto-correct

[Notidanodon]

Wow, sounds like a great project  

[Flx]

19 minutes ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

Definitely arms like more work than I would be able to tackle at this point with our 4.5yo and 6mo. But also looks like an awesome project I could entirely find myself in. Given the chance I'd probably have done the same  As such, very interested to see how you progress 

 

Thanks!

Well, I am not in a hurry preparing all the material. It has been laying around 150M years anyway. 

Usually I find some time after the kids are in bed. Maybe 1h per day in average. Therefore, the last similar sized prep project took me 2.5 years.

[aerogrower]

Wow just wow!! Please keep us updated as you go, I for one would love to see your progress!  

 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

22 minutes ago, Flx said:

 

Thanks!

Well, I am not in a hurry preparing all the material. It has been laying around 150M years anyway. 

Usually I find some time after the kids are in bed. Maybe 1h per day in average. Therefore, the last similar sized prep project took me 2.5 years.

 

I completely know the feeling, though to me 1h of prep-work a day sounds like such a luxury! I normally don't get as much. And, in any case, no more mechanical stuff after lights out, as we live in a tiny apartment and I therefore do most of my preparation in the kitchen... The most time I get is the three weeks a year my wife visits her family with the kids. But as in just missed my slot, I'll note probably here to wait another year to finish the mosasaur paddle I started on last year 

[Ludwigia]

Yes, I certainly would be interested to watch your progress.

[RJB]

 Would certainly be interested in seeing your progress on these.  and you must have one heck of a large prep room?  How are you even going to move these around? 

 

RB

[Flx]

2 hours ago, RJB said:

 Would certainly be interested in seeing your progress on these.  and you must have one heck of a large prep room?  How are you even going to move these around? 

 

RB

 

Well, since my wife likes horses we moved to a farm a few kilometers outside of Zurich already a few years ago. There is plenty of space for prepping there and nobody cares about the noise. 

 

I didn't quite figure out how to handle the really big plaster jackets yet.  

So far, I can move the crates around with a pallet mover. Furthermore, I plan to install a winch for lifting the large jackets (about 300kg). 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

Wow! That sounds like quite the professional operation! 

[hadrosauridae]

Wow, thats cool to say the least!

[Flx]

7 hours ago, aerogrower said:

Wow just wow!! Please keep us updated as you go, I for one would love to see your progress!  

 

 

6 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Yes, I certainly would be interested to watch your progress.

 

Okay!

I already opened one of the smaller jackets which seems to contain a sauropod caudal vertebra. I will post some pictures soon.

[Ptychodus04]

4 hours ago, Flx said:

I didn't quite figure out how to handle the really big plaster jackets yet.  

So far, I can move the crates around with a pallet mover. Furthermore, I plan to install a winch for lifting the large jackets (about 300kg). 

 

If you prep the jackets while still on the pallets, you can move them around at will with your pallet jack. Then, when it's time to flip them over, they will weigh a lot less and your support jacket for the actual bones will be a lot smaller.

 

I remember the days of only prepping for an hour. I'm prepping for 4-5 hours in the evening M-F and 6-8 daily on the weekends.

[Flx]

1 hour ago, Ptychodus04 said:

 

If you prep the jackets while still on the pallets, you can move them around at will with your pallet jack. Then, when it's time to flip them over, they will weigh a lot less and your support jacket for the actual bones will be a lot smaller.

 

I remember the days of only prepping for an hour. I'm prepping for 4-5 hours in the evening M-F and 6-8 daily on the weekends.

 

Yes, this makes sense.

Also, some jackets contain multiple bones. I can probably seperate them to make the individual pieces easier to handle.

[fossilhunter21]

Wow! That is awesome!

Would love to see your progress!

Edited August 30, 2021 by fossilhunter21

[Troodon]

Quite a project.  You're doing a great job on the Camptosaurus block these should be equally rewarding and maybe a few more surprises.   Watch out for very small teeth like Stego's they can certainly be there. 

[Top Trilo]

Looks like a fun, cool and time consuming project, and would really enjoy seeing the progress. Cool material too, dinosaurs straight out of my own state.

[RJB]

21 hours ago, Flx said:

I plan to install a winch for lifting the large jackets (about 300kg).

 There used to be a home remodeling show here where in the opening the guy would say, "go big or go home".   You most certainly fit that category!  Best of luck to ya.

 

RB

[Flx]

Quick update:

I took one of the smaller plaster jackets to get a feeling for the matrix and the bone quality.

The matrix was soft and brittle wich makes preparation quite fast. The bone itself contained hundreds of cracks which is normal for Morrison Fm fossils. I spent several hours with filling all the hairline cracks with low viscosity cyanoacrylate. This is important to make sure that the bone is not falling apart while removing the plaster jacket piece by piece.

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I am quite happy with the material so far. As you can see, the fossils is a pretty nice and almost complete caudal vertebra. About 5% of what you see is crack fill.

Obviously, the vertebra belongs to a sauropod due to it's ridiculous size (about 46cm / 18 inch high). On the right of the vert, you can see a reconstruction of the animal. 

 

Edited September 3, 2021 by Flx

[Flx]

Not sure about the family/genus yet. I think it looks a bit like a Camarasaurus C10 ,C11 or C12. However, there are so many sauropods in Morrison Fm. and I cannot find useful reference pictures for most of them. 

[Troodon]

It does have affinities to Camarasaurus lewisi holotype C10 (BYU9047) (41cm high) with that short horizontal process if its complete and not a partial.  C11 was just a nub and not visible in C12.  However probably indistinguishable between other Camarasaurus species.  Nice vertebra.

[RJB]

What Troodon said,,  "Nice vertebra"

 

RB

[Flx]

Ok, since my last update I bought and installed a winch that enables me to lift the heavy plaster jackets. 

 

I successfully lifted a 300kg block labeled with "2 sauropod vertebrae" and put it on top of the crate. The block is now on a confortable height so I can start with the preparation. My plan is to remove the rock material above the fossil to understand the location and orientation of the vertebrae. Then, I can brobably cut the block into smaller pieces that are easier to handle.

 

 

[Flx]

I started to carefully remove the overlaying rock millimeter by millimeter using a knife and my airscribe.

After removing about 20cm of matrix (whch took about 3-4 hours) I had the feeling that there was probably no fossil inside that block. 

 

Anyway, I continued and a few minutes later I finally touched down on bone.