Permian dig with Whiteside museum

[hadrosauridae]

I recently attended the PermianFest event at the Whiteside museum in Seymour Texas.  Along with several days of great speakers, they also offered dig workshops at one of their Permian redbed sites.  I absolutely couldn't make the trip without getting in on a dig!  I only went for a single day in the field, I wish it could have been for 5, it was so great.  We were digging in the Craddock bonebed, a location where many museum specimens of Dimetrodon, and many other Permian fauna have been recovered.  It was a special treat to be working a quarry site in the footsteps of Cope, Sternberg, Bakker and more.  The shear amount of fossil material is staggering.  I thought that the PaleoAdventures Hell creek site was dense, this was packed even more.  We started with surface collecting.  Just plop down on a bit of ground and start looking.  Ddon, Eryops, Orthocanthus and more species of bone bits everywhere.  Everything I collected on the surface was in an area about 2ft x 2ft.  After getting our eyes tuned in on the shapes, sizes, and colors of the fossils, we moved into the quarry to begin working back the quarry face.  I am convinced that we were exposing a new Dimetrodon skeleton.  I was uncovering ribs, verts and sail-spines, the people to my right were finding cervical verts, and the man to my left was finding verts, spines and an ilium.

It was a great dig, I wish it wasn't almost 5 hour drive each way for me.

 

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Sounds like terrific fun!