Prepping some hell creek bones

[Alex S.]

I recently had the opportunity to purchase some jacketed fossils from a ranch in Garfield County, Montana in the hell creek formation. I bought 2 jackets, one with several small ribs present that I am currently working on.

 

Another containing a single bone that I think is a hadrosaur pubis.

 

One thing that surprised me was the wealth of smaller bits of bone present in the jacket I'm sure this is an amazing microsite I would love to see first hand. There were some really small bones that I don't think are identifiable but regardless very cool.

 

This one with a really interesting convavity so maybe a joint in a small vertebrate?

 

I also found what I think to be a ceratopsian spitter? It's very worn but it looks like some I've seen on the forum.

And then another possible tooth? That unfortunately I was heavy handed in brushing off some sand before I consolidated it and it shattered.

 

I also found what I think to be tiny petrified twigs, as well as what I think to be a piece of turtle shell that looks like trionychida to me but I'll know better when I get it cleaned off.

There was also these pieces that vaguely resemble some carpals I've seen but are incredibly worn and not fully cleaned off yet.

There were other various bits of bone as well that are waiting to be cleaned on my messy tray as well as a piece of coprolite? That I need to look at closer with a microscope.

I got to the back side of the ribs without too much effort and that is where things started to get difficult, while I would love an ARO I'm fresh out of college and can't justify the purchase of that and an air compressor to my wife haha. So I am working with dental picks and some sculpting tools from my ceramics hobby. And a magnifying visor from yoctosun that I quite enjoy using with my glasses.

 

The ribs were very generously coated in glue to stabilize them and about 2cm of matrix in any direction so I've slowly but surely picking off the sediment and softening it with brushed on acetone. I still have a long way to go before I even start the pubis and suspect that to get them where I wanted I might have to wait until I have a better set up to get some of the really stubborn bits off. 

 

The rancher thought they might be pachycephalosaur ribs which is possible, I know that ribs are tricky to ID. I have been having a  hard time finding articles that describe hell creek ribs, let alone some that have pictures. It doesn't help that they aren't complete either so I am not comfortable assigning a species to them yet.

 

I am very excited to start working on the pubis it will probably take awhile but my wife is leaving on clinical rotations, so I'll be alone for 6 months leaving me ample opportunity to prep after work. Thanks for reading, if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them.

 

 

 

 

[hadrosauridae]

Looks like some nice stuff there! Yep, one thing about HC bones is they are typically highly fractured and extremely fragile, necessitating a lot of glue to keep them together for extraction and transport.  Every year I tell myself "I'm not going to coat the bones in paleobond" and then I get the top of the bones exposed and go "holy snarge its so broken already, I better cover it in glue or its going to fall apart just getting it out" 

 

Looks like you have your work ahead of you for a while, and sounds like you already know how to tackle the problem.  Good luck, and let us know how they come out.

[jpc]

Your IDs are pretty spot on.  Soft-shelled turtle, coprolite, spitter.  The first picture (post ribs and pubis) is an ossified tendon.  Concavity is the end of a gar vert. 

[Alex S.]

@hadrosauridae I am sure i would do the same thing. These ribs have micro fractures all over, it is really a test of patience that I have failed multiple times. Luckily glue exists haha.

 

@jpc thank you so much for the confirmation as well as those ID's it is really good to see some progression in my knowledge. 

[Alex S.]

I had to take a break to get all my PhD applications in on time but I've finished the ribs the carpal.

I decided to leaving a small bit of shell hash that was sticking to one of the ribs because I found it aesthetically pleasing at the 5cm mark.

I unfortunately have not had time to do much research on IDing the bones and will make a post in the ID section. The literature ive found is very vague about ribs and often doesn't mention them besides saying they were found. 

 

I have started working on a hadrosaur pubis and just cleared off all bulk matrix and will start working on the fine details soon the tail end of it is fairly fractured so it is slow going.

my dog likes to help by dropping ball on the fossil while I'm working. I guess it's my fault because I commandeered the coffee table to work on it while my wife's on her clinical rotations. Thanks for looking I will update this post with my progress on the pubis.