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

[fossilhunter21]

Cool find! You did an amazing job with the gap fill and the prep!

[Huntonia]

Holy cow!!! How have I not seen this thread yet? Man I've gotta be more active on here. This is really incredible! I can't even imagine the patience to dig through so much material, but oh man the payoff! 

[Flx]

I have no posted updates in a while. 

 

Anyway, I recently found some time to continue prep. more Morrison material. Below some pictures of a pretty massive bone I am working on. The quality of the bone is good. However, the preparation is not straight forward due to the enormous weight and size of the specimen. To move the large part I always need heklp of a 2nd person. Also, my chamber for sand blasting is a bit to small. 

I did not glue the three parts together since the bone would be around 150kg then. The total lenght is about 125cm. I added a picture of my 3 year old son for size comparison.

 

The bone seems to be a sauropod tibia (on the jacket it said humerus which doesn't seem to be correct). In the quarry most saurpod bones can be identified as either Camarasaurus or Apatosaurus, I plan to check out the dinos at the local museum soon for comparison.

 

 

[RJB]

Not too many kids with huge dino bones as play things!  Wow!

 

RB

[fossilhunter21]

That is awesome! You are doing an amazing job on that dino bone!  Keep up the good work.

 

-Micah

[RuMert]

Looks fantastic

[mr.cheese]

I am only a little bit jealous of you! Excellent work, I am enjoying the posts!

[Troodon]

Very nice work on that tibia.  Those large bones are hard to work on.   Does the bone need a rod inserted to support final assembly?

 

Camarasaurus tibia to compare against.  Looks good.

 

[Flx]

@RJB: The good thing about the tibia is that I can let my kids touch it without risking that it is damaged.

 

@fossilhunter21 @RuMert @mr.cheese : Thank you!

 

@Troodon: Yes, maybe the bone needs a rod. However, I am actually thinking of building a stand on which I simply stack the three pieces onto each other (vertically) without gluing them together. That way no rod is required and I can move it around much easier.

 

Regarding the ID:

Thank you for uploading the Camarasaurus images. I think it fits quite well. However, some aspects are also different. For example, the proximal end of my bone is more of an oval while in the Camarasaurus drawing it looks almost circular. Also, the distal end looks a bit different. I have no clue if this is within the normal variation or if the tibia belongs to a different dino family. I think I know some ppl who can probably tell me though.

 

[jpc]

8 hours ago, Flx said:

 

 

@Troodon: Yes, maybe the bone needs a rod. However, I am actually thinking of building a stand on which I simply stack the three pieces onto each other (vertically) without gluing them together. That way no rod is required and I can move it around much easier.

 

 

 

This is a much  better idea than a rod through it.  You got too much invested in this to ruin it by putting a rod into it.   External support all the way!  

[Troodon]

Agree if you stabilize it on the stand and it does not move.  Those bones are quite heavy and moving 3 pieces are better than one.

[Flx]

While removing matrix I found a few teeth. 

 

Not sure what this one is. Croc maybe?

Length is about 15mm.

 

 

[Troodon]

Yes looks like Croc possibly a Goniopholididae with all those ridges.  Nice finds

[fossilhunter21]

1 hour ago, Flx said:

While removing matrix I found a few teeth. 

 

Not sure what this one is. Croc maybe?

Length is about 15mm.

 

 

That is cool! 

 

-Micah

[Flx]

Here is another small tooth I found hidden in matrix earlier this week,

It's about 10mm long. This looks like small theropod I think.

[Nanotyrannus35]

Beautiful! Here's a thread by @Troodon that might help you ID it.

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/87943-identification-of-theropod-teeth-of-the-morrison-fm/

 

[Flx]

33 minutes ago, Nanotyrannus35 said:

Beautiful! Here's a thread by @Troodon that might help you ID it.

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/87943-identification-of-theropod-teeth-of-the-morrison-fm/

 

 

Thanks. 

Trying to ID is kinda tricky since I don't know how much of the tooth is missing and if this is a baby tooth. 

[Troodon]

Boy you keep finding cool teeth in this matrix.  Looks like a nice tooth, unfortunately not complete its missing a unknown amount of the bottom end.

[fossilhunter21]

Lovely tooth!  It is very unfortunate that it is not complete. One of the many nice things abut prepping fossils is that you never know what you will find. But when buying a prepped specimen you know exactly what you are receiving and what it looks like.

 

-Micah

[Flx]

9 hours ago, fossilhunter21 said:

Lovely tooth!  It is very unfortunate that it is not complete. One of the many nice things abut prepping fossils is that you never know what you will find. But when buying a prepped specimen you know exactly what you are receiving and what it looks like.

 

-Micah

 

Thank you.

I always have to smile when ppl ask the sellers for additional pictures before buying a specimen. What I do is spend thousands of dollars for unprepared jackets with descriptions like "multiple? vertebrae?" or "sauropod leg bone, heavy, 200+kg". 

If I am unlucky I end up with a pile of chunkosaurus. However, I also had luck many times and my collection now includes a few pieces that you usually cannot find on the market.

[Flx]

I processed another large block of mudstone. It contained a lot of chunkosaurus and pieces of sauropod caudal vertebrae and ribs (mostly chunkosaurus). However, there were a few interesting pieces in it. On was another toe bone. Quite a bit smaller than the other one I found (last picture for size comparison).

 

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Flx

[Flx]

Also, another cool piece was this tiny vertebra, No idea what animal it belongs to.

 

[Troodon]

Keeps getting better, nice finds.  That new bone may be a metatarsal not a toebone.  Several small Ornithischian in these depisits, might even fit that vertebra

 

[Flx]

10 hours ago, Troodon said:

Keeps getting better, nice finds.  That new bone may be a metatarsal not a toebone.  Several small Ornithischian in these depisits, might even fit that vertebra

 

 

Thanks for the assessment.

When I create labels, do you think it is save to call both the metatarsal/toe and the vert "Ornithischian"?

[RJB]

Purty cool stuff!

 

RB