Finally, Photos Of The First Dinosaur Bones To Be Found In Tennessee.

[Tennessees Pride]

Anyone who has searched the internet for pictures of the 5 dinosaur bones that were recovered from the Cretaceous of West Tennessee knows what I'm talking about: there simply isn't ANY photos available to view the all the specimens, with the exception of a PDF file wrote in 1991 by Mr. Bryan from UT Knoxville. That said, the bones aren't to scale in the PDF and some PDF files of the paper don't even retain the pictures. An exhaustive internet search for the material only pulls up a few pictures of a bone or two plus one photo of a few associated fragments. Here I present to you as many photos of the material as I can. In this thread I also present the first photos of every single frag that is associated with the specimens, which isn't on public display. For at least 3 years now, I've tried hard to get photos of these specimens, I finally had to just go to Knoxville and do it myself. Now you all may have access to view photos of this online. A little background history about these bones; they were obtained by the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) from the Tennessee Division of Geology. The tag on the bones simply read "Cretaceous, West Tennessee." That is all! It is thought they were recovered sometime between the 40's-50's by the Division, and that the Geologist whom they came from didn't record the locality information on purpose because he had intent on returning to work the site. Until 2015 these were the only dinosaur bones to ever be found in Tennessee and publicly acknowledged. The find site is still an enduring mystery which I'm working on. My cell takes terrible photos, so I'm sorry about the picture quality, still I wanted to share these photos with you all.

[sixgill pete]

But there are no pictures ......

[Tennessees Pride]

On 5/5/16 I traveled to UT Knoxville and had a meeting with a vertebrate Paleontologist, an invertebrate paleontologist, a sedimentologist, a meteorite specialist, the Director of McClung Museum, and the Manager of Collections. This not being the place to discuss all the events of that day, here I only present the access that was given me regarding the first dinosaur material that was recovered long ago.

[Tennessees Pride]

The bones on display.

[Tennessees Pride]

More views.

[Tennessees Pride]

A few more shots...

[Tennessees Pride]

I was given open access to the associated bone frags that belong with the identified material that is on display. Here I am inspecting the material in a back room at the museum. This material isn't on public display. The Director of the McClung Museum and also Keeper of Collections were very nice and helpful people and went out of their way to allow me access to this material for sedimentological analysis. I thank them so much!

[Tennessees Pride]

The material not on public display.

[Raggedy Man]

This is a prime example of why correctly labeling your finds is a must. Without context, the scientific value of these bones is significantly diminished.

Thanks for sharing this Joshua.

Best regards,

Paul

[Tennessees Pride]

More views of the fragments not on display.

[Tennessees Pride]

A selection of my Tennessee dinosaur material and the McClung Museum material.

[Mike Pocock]

Thanks for the post looks like you had a good time and meet some very nice folks, thanks for the post

Regards

Mike

[Tennessees Pride]

Upon being given access to the material not on display, I was astounded to see this specimen, as it certainly appears to be diagnostic to me. I think it is a fragment of a distal Hadrosaur scapula....what does everyone think about this??? I've emailed the vertebrate Paleontologist at UT Knoxville and am still awaiting a reply. If this frag can be identified, it will be the 6th.dinosaur bone the museum houses. Man that would be something special to actually be able to identify this specimen!

[Tennessees Pride]

More views of the possible distal Hadrosaur scapula frag.

[Tennessees Pride]

A few last views of the possible diagnostic bone...

[Tennessees Pride]

Two days before the meeting, I wasn't even for sure I wouldbe able to access the material at UT Knoxville, so I traveled to The Discovery Park Of America in Union City, TN. (All the way on the other end of the state...about 400 miles from Knoxville) to view and photograph replica casts of the original material on display...

[Fossildude19]

Joshua,

Thanks for making these pictures accessible, here on the Forum.

Neat stuff.

Regards,

[sixgill pete]

Just now looked back and saw the pictures. Fantastic. Thanks for posting them and congrats on you Tennessee dino finds as well.

[caldigger]

What a shame, that poor dino had to drop dead while on vacation to Dollywood.

[siteseer]

That's what I was thinking when I read through this thread a few minutes ago. All you really have now are bones said to have come from there. The only thing left is checking the bones for enough attached matrix to match it to known rocks in western Tennessee. I assume it would be a non-paying project for someone.

This is a prime example of why correctly labeling your finds is a must. Without context, the scientific value of these bones is significantly diminished.

Thanks for sharing this Joshua.

Best regards,
Paul