Fossil hunting trip!

[fossilhunter21]

  Me and my family just finished up our first fossil hunt! We are still at the ranch, but are leaving in the morning.  We all are sad to have to leave the ranch. We all had fun exploring and doing different thimgs, (though some of us a lot less than others) and really enjoyed talking with, Rick and, Jean. They are really nice people. And it is a really nice place to stay.

 

  Unfortunately the guide, and everyone else cancled, so we were fossil hunting alone.

 

  WE left home at 2 AM on saturday, and arrived in Omaha, NE around 11 AM. We stopped in Omaha to visit with some family, and stayed overnight at an airbnb. The scenery is pretty cool where we stayed! 
We were very glad that the airbnb was near the top of the hill, instead of at the bottom. 

  Sunday we left the airbnb around 6 AM, and stopped for lunch at a park sometime around 11:00? I don't know, never been good with rembering stuff like that. Here is a photo of the river running through the park we we visited for a lunch break: 
  After lunch we quickly hit the road again.   And FINALLY at 3 in the afternoon we arrived! 
  It is truly amazing out here. Indiana is extremely boring compared to the western part of Nebraska! We spent some time enjoying the sunset, and stars before finally calling it a night. You can see so much more stuff in the sky at night here than Indiana. That is to be expected, as we are not really close to any big towns. 

  Monday we went to Crawford, and got some groceries. The grocery stores are very different than the ones in Indiana.

  Then we visited the University of Nebraska State Museum's Trailside Museum of Natural History. They have some pretty interesting fossils. And it was not very expensive to get in. We then wondered around Fort Robinson, before taking the Smiley Canyon Scenic Drive. It is a scenic drive, where you are supposed to be able to see Bison.  And we did see some Bison, but they were too far away to get good pictures, Unfortunately. Here are some pictures I took along the scenic drive: 
  We then went to a rock shop, and I got what appears to be a pretty complete unprepared oreodont skull. I am looking forward to taking a better look at it when I get home, but for now it is all wrapped up. 

   We then went back to the ranch, and had dinner, and went to sleep.

  TUESDAY we got up early, and, Jean took us out to a part the badlands she owns, and kind of showed us around. We then went fossil hunting on our own, and I found an oreodont jaw at almost the very second that we stopped where we were going to hunt. I was very excited! Then for a while all we were finding were snails and bone pieces and things like that. AND THEN I found a mostly complete tortoise! A little after I had found it we went back to the ranch and rested and then came back out in the evening. Unfortunately I did not dig deep enough, so I left some of the tortoise in the hole, and the supplies we had were not good enough, so the plaster jacket did almost nothing, and the tortoise sorta fell apart when we got back...

  My chest started to hurt right after we went fossil hunting for the first time on tuesday. After we came back from fossil hunting in the evening my chest hurt VERY badly. I would rather be sick than have that kind of pain. If I moved it made it worse, and laying down made it worse. Eventually I was able to lay down, and get some sleep, but it still hurt.

   I know why I was in so much pain. It is because of my pectus evacatum. It makes one side of my chest sink in, and if my heart beats too hard, then it starts to hurt. But usually it just hurts for a few seconds

  On wednesday we decided to not go fossil hunting, as my body obviously needed a break. We went to The Mammoth Site, and looked around at all the cool stuff they had. It is a pretty interesting place.

  We then went to JH Keith Cascade Falls Picnic Area, and got into the water, but it was kind of chilly, so I did not go swimming.

  We then stopped at a food store that looked interesting, and got some goodies. Then we went to Walmart to get some supplies, and food.

  We then headed back to the ranch to get some more rest.

  Thursday, Jean took us out to a new location, and again, almost as soon as we stopped where we wanted to hunt, I found something, but this time it was a skull. It is fairly weathered, but it has both uppers and lowers. Then a little while after I found that skull, I found another skull, this one being not as weathered, but I don't know how much is there. I then decided to work plaster jacketing the first skull, and got it out of the ground. But there was not enough time, or plaster to plaster jacket the second skull. So we went back to the ranch, and then went to a hardware store, and Dollar General, to get some more supplies. Unfortunately DG did not have what I wanted, but it was not something I really needed.

  We then went back to the ranch, and were too tired to do any more fossil hunting that day.

 

Friday we headed out early again, and I worked on the second skull, and while working on that, I explored some more of the area and discovered a couple more skulls, though none of them are in amazing shape. I unfortunately had nothing with me to mark the best one. I tried to mark it with some rocks, but unfortunately I was not able to refind it when I had all my tools.

  I was able to finish up the second skull, jacket a really worn down one with duct tape and foil. I also was able to remove an oreodont lower jaw, maybe part of the skull cap, and a bone or two, they appear to be from the same specimen.

Again we were too tired to go out in the evening, so we rested.

SATURDAY (today) we went rock hunting, not really something I am interested in, but the rest were interested, and they found some interesting rocks. I did not really collect any rocks. I found a bullet though. I have no clue what it came from or how old it is, but to me it looks modern. 

 

We then headed back to the ranch to have lunch, and get everything ready, and packed up, as we are leaving in the morning

 

Sorry that I took so few photos! I just am not great with remembering to take them. I need to work on that. I will try to post some pics of my finds soon!

 

Thanks for looking! 

 

-Micah

 

 

[Darktooth]

Nice report and pics! Thanks for sharing this with us!

[val horn]

Sounds like you had a great and productive time

[Neanderthal Shaman]

Nice! Looks like you had a great trip.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Neanderthal Shaman

[historianmichael]

Nice trip! I can’t wait to see some more photos once you get back and have time to work on the fossils you found 

[FossilSniper]

Nice report and trip! You better show us those oreodont skulls!

[jpc]

Nice report.  Tales like this really tempt me to do more fossil guiding.  I hope your guide had a valid excuse to bail on you.  (I had to bail on a forum member earlier this year when i got covid).

[hadrosauridae]

Awesome trip report!  Sounds like you had a great time.  I hope my son and I can make it up there on our next trip.

[MarcoSr]

Great trip report and pictures.  Sounds like you had a really good time and found some really nice stuff.  However, if you aren't experienced in stabilizing, excavating, jacketing, and removing specimens that can be a real challenge, especially without a guide to help.  Excavation can be tricky, balancing keeping the weight down versus getting enough matrix to stabilize the specimen.  Tortoises can be especially tricky.  They can look pretty solid.  However, if you don't leave enough matrix and pedestal and flip them properly after jacketing some can explode into a hundred pieces.  I'm looking forward to seeing your specimens after some prepping.  Prepping can be fairly easy compared to any restoration that you might want.  Restoration takes a lot of experience and skill.

 

Marco Sr.

[mr.cheese]

Looks like you had a good time!

Where was you went if you don't mind me asking?

[fossilhunter21]

On 8/15/2022 at 6:06 PM, jpc said:

Nice report.  Tales like this really tempt me to do more fossil guiding.  I hope your guide had a valid excuse to bail on you.  (I had to bail on a forum member earlier this year when i got covid).

I think she did because all of the people besides me cancled (I was originally going to be the only one fossil hunting).

 

On 8/16/2022 at 11:30 AM, mr.cheese said:

Looks like you had a good time!

Where was you went if you don't mind me asking?

I went to Our Heritage Guest Ranch. 

 

I started to work on one of the skulls (the second one I found), and unfortunately hit one of the teeth because it was not attached to the skull (I may have been going too fast...).  So I don't think I am going to work on them until I am a little better at prep. For now I will practice on some other things.  

 

Here are some pics of the finds that were not jacketed:

The specimens in this photo are asscociated.

 

-Micah

Edited August 17, 2022 by fossilhunter21

[fossilhunter21]

Here are some pics of the second skull I found.

 

 

Before any prep:

And after:

 

And a pic of the skull I purchased:

I tried working on this skull, and again ruined some parts. Prepping fossils is a LOT more stressfull than people think... It is actually making me very depressed... If only I could prep them without ruining them, but then it would not be a learning experience would it?

 

And a pic of the skulls still in the jackets. They will probably stay in them for a while. The larger one is the first skull I found, and the smaller one is the third one I found

 

-Micah

Edited August 17, 2022 by fossilhunter21

[Flx]

2 hours ago, fossilhunter21 said:

I tried working on this skull, and again ruined some parts. Prepping fossils is a LOT more stressfull than people think... It is actually making me very depressed... If only I could prep them without ruining them, but then it would not be a learning experience would it?

 

Cool finds!

Regarding the prep: My strategy is to carefully apply low viscosity cyanoacrylate to the bone (or paraloid, butvar, etc. if you want it to be reversable). Since the bone is porous it will harden the bone only. Then its much easier to remove the matrix without damaging the bone. Not sure how well this works with the material you have though, Also, I usually do crack fill before removing to much matrix.

And don't feel bad if the prep does not always work out the way you want. The skulls would have been destroyed by erosion if you did not collect them. 

[jpc]

Having worked on a lot of white river stuff, i would avoid putting cyanoacrylate on the bones.  Use it to glue things back together, but avoid getting any on thr surface.

[fossilhunter21]

Thanks @Flx and @jpc! 

 

-Micah