Spring 2018 Dino Trip

[Troodon 11,257]

Anytime you can go collecting fossils its a good time and I would like to share my spring trip to South Dakota and Montana.  

 

My South Dakota site is in the upper Hell Creek Formation and full of the hadrosaur Edmontosaurus annectens.  I've been collecting this site for over 20 years and its still delivering.    We are on the edge of a bluff and the fossil layer can be between 2 to 4 feet.   Lots of good bones are to be found but we also have lots of punky or junk bones and about 70 % is collectible.   The site is quite large and like I said last year we have no idea of its size but it contains scores of hadrosaurs, all disarticulated.   No skulls are found but all the elements that make up a skull can be found.  I like collecting in the section where smaller bones, unguals-toe-carpal-verts, are more typical while others like to go after larger limb bones.   

 

 

My trip to these areas takes me through the Chile Capital of the World, Hatch, New Mexico.  Greeting me is Mr Rex a good start to my trip.  I hear he is harmless...  all show no action

 

 

 

Some pictures of the South Dakota site 

The collecting zone is between the white lines a layer of 2 to 4 feet.

 

 

 

The layer is shown below.  The top is very crumbly and full of concretions.  

 

 

My Collecting gear consists of a tool box with everything I need to collect

 

 

 

My glue field consolidant, orange bottle,  without strength but is easy to prep and my structural glue, red.  Activator to accelerate curing which rarely used. 

 

Tips for the glue

 

 

Basic Tools I like to use

 

 

No its not a beach day but temperatures approaching 90 degrees (32C) can get pretty hot so some protection is needed

 

[Troodon 11,257]

Note: I'm not one that spends time cleaning bones in the field that will be done later...

 

Toe Bones are prized and one pops up top left within minutes of my dig.   Takes about 30 minutes to work this bone out.

 

 

Bones like to stick to the matrix so I like to use my knife to pry it up 

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Aluminum foil is all that is necessary to transport it home 

 

 

I typically do not collect tendons but this was a nice big one

A 

 

 

Lots of caudal vertebrae found on this trip.  Here is one missing the small processes 

 

Interesting pathology, it has a groove in it and does not appear to be a bit mark.

 

Again foil is all that is needed.

[Troodon 11,257]

One afternoon we had a very dangerous storm.  Big hail, 70mph winds,  tornado warnings, one hit the city of Gillette, Wyoming.  One of our vehicles sustained minor hail damage.  We all were able to leave the prairie without problem.

 

 

 

A large carpal, hand bone .  We call this the triangle carpal.   One of the nicer ones I've seen, preservation outstanding.  Extraction was easy less that 15 minutes

 

 

 

 

About two feet down ran into this, its alive   Moss? Plant, Fungus?  About 2 inches across, very cool

 

 

From a fellow digger

1) Rib

2) Humerus

3) Femur  42"

 

Couple of ribs - casted and ready to transport

 

 

A hand ungual

 

 

 

 

[Troodon 11,257]

Bones are typically found in pockets so you may did for a while and find nothing and then a Toe Bone, Foot Ungual and Tooth.  A very good day

 

Toe Bone on top and on its side below a foot ungual.  

 

 

 

Nice big toe bone

 

Ungual

 

 

Medium size Ungual

 

While clearing the matrix from the ungual a surprise an Acheroraptor tooth.

Nice Trio  

 

A small Caudal Centrum from a Juvie.

 

 

[Troodon 11,257]

A Juvie Toe bone

 

Initial discovery 

 

Came out within seconds

 

 

 

A skull element was next fount its an exoccipital located in the back of the skull. 

 

Illustration from a different different type of hadrosaur.

 

Element in green

 

 

Initial discovery, no clue what I had

 

 

Its in great condition and off to my prep person 

 

 

Another skull element a Quadrate, shown in red in the above illustration.  Not my find.

 

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Another skull element

 

 

 

 

[Troodon 11,257]

A Juvenile Tibia, not well preserved specimen but nice.

 

Initial Discovery

 

 

 

 

No pictures but followed by wrapping in aluminum foil and then plaster jacket.

 

 

A vertebra

Initial Discovery

 

 

[Troodon 11,257]

A Vertebra from the upper junk layer.  Not preserved very well

 

 

Decided to remove it intact with matrix

 

 

 

Centrum

 

 

Vertebra

Initial Discovery

 

 

Rooted Hadro tooth

 

[Troodon 11,257]

Local Flowers

 

 

Long Bone not identified yet.   

Initial discovery

 

 

 

Plaster wrap does the trick on this small bone

 

 

When flipped

 

 

Large Centrum, Initial discovery

 

 

Nanotyrannus Tooth - found when extracting the centrum

 

[Troodon 11,257]

Humerus - not mine

 

Jacketed with a burlap reinforcement

 

Hadrosaur Rooted Tooth

Just the tip was exposed.  Not sure if it had a root at this point.  Caution taken just in case

 

Part of the root visible.

 

Nice size root - full of matrix and glue

 

Found a couple of Juvie Chevrons here is an Adult one

 

 

[Troodon 11,257]

Spent a few days in Montana at a Channel Deposit.   Mostly found Teeth and a Thescelosaurus vertebra

 

You can tell you are in Montana

 

 

Sites are pretty remote

 

Backhoe helps with overburden removal

 

 

Black line overburden - 5 to 10 feet.  Red lines the Hell Creek Layer 3 feet

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Typical Theropod tooth discovery

 

 

A number of items went to a prep person in SD that I could not manage.  Will Post those when I get them back.  

 

Edmontosaurs Carpals

 

 

Crocodile Material

 

Hadrosaur Teeth

 

Theropod Teeth - all need to be prepped and will post at a later date including a couple of small rex teeth not in the photo

 

Did find these to tiny teeth that I was able to clean up.

Acheroraptor

 

Richardoestesia sp.

 

 

 

 

[Bone guy 450]

What are you building?  

1 minute ago, Troodon said:

under construction

 

[Peat Burns 1,872]

Love the toe bones and unguals.  Harder to come by IMO. I'd be biased towards those, too.  Great, informative post.  Love the typical digging knife.  Among other things good for shaving roots (rather than pulling  which the inexperienced digger would soon regret! ).

 

Thanks for posting pics from paradise.

[Raggedy Man 813]

[Malcolmt 489]

Absolutely amazing post with great pics.......

[Troodon 11,257]

1 hour ago, Bone guy said:

What are you building?  

 

A skeleton,  all finished 

[ynot 6,187]

 

Looks like You did good on this trip, congratulations Frank!

[Bone guy 450]

Wow, great trip! The theropod teeth are my favorite. That Acheroraptor tooth is exquisite  

[sixgill pete 1,274]

Awesome Frank. That is a dream trip of a lifetime for many of us!

[Nimravis 3,233]

Nice finds Frank and great trip report.

[jpc 1,793]

Cool. Looks like you have some good sites there.  Nice pile of bones.  

[Innocentx 867]

Great bones!  Any theories on what caused the complete dis-articulation of even the skulls? Flooding perhaps?

[KimTexan 1,664]

It looks similar to the terrain of a dig site in the Lance Formation in Wyoming I’ve been to a couple times. Only the one I go to has hoodoos all over the place. I think the layers were thicker in the Lance where we dig too.

The dig I’ve been to is in June.

 

I get the crazy weather. Once when out on the dig we had a severe storm with straight line winds. Many of those there for the dig were camping in tents because it is so remote. The temp had been in the 80s during the day, but suddenly dropped to below freezing that night with wind, rain and sleet. The winds were so bad it mangled a few tents rendering them unusable. 

Often strong winds blow through the day sand blasting you while you dig. They put up little lento We all had to wear goggles to protect our eyes from the sand.

 

The fossils look pretty similar to the Lance too, but there are a lot more large bones. Some take days to remove. I don’t think the teeth were very common on the particular 2 sites I dug in, but in other sites they were. They also found a number of sculls. 

 

It looks like an amazing trip with great finds.

 

So what happens to the fossils that you dig up? 

 

All those dug up in situ on the dig I attend go to a university museum. Whatever you find not in situ you can take 

[WhodamanHD 2,427]

That’s a lot of Dino! Just bone after bone after bone! Awesome job and thanks for taking us with you! I believe the wierd growth is a lichen if some sort. Many millions of species and they are a composite organism in and of themselves so it’s probably not gonna get beyond that.

[jpc 1,793]

In general the Lance has a lot more rather thick yellowish sandstones than the Hell Creek, which has more gray and dark gray mudstone beds.  And yes, hoodoos are very typical in the Lance; made of those very same yellow sandstones.   Which University Museum have you been digging with?  Not mine, unless that is not your photo inyour avatar.    

 

we are pretty proud of our wind here in Wyoming.   If you come back for another dig, stop by the Tate Museum in Casper... I  (or one of my vols) can show you some cool stuff.  

 

[Manticocerasman 708]

So many bones