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Hell Creek Fm Collecting Trip


Troodon

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Just got back from a trip to the badlands of Montana and South Dakota in the Hell Creek Formation..  Here are some photos of some of the bones I picked up at an Edmontosaurus site.  My hope was to collect specimens fitting in a shoebox and I was fairly successful at that which was quite surprise since you dont get to choose what you find.

The site is faily large and the area I was collected had about 6 foot of overburden removed a couple of years ago so there was only 12 inches left before I hit the layer.  The layer in this area is about 17 to 20 inches thick, white lines.  Nothing is prepped at this point, lots of work in front of me but here are the raw photos before beautification :)

 

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Foot Bones - numbers correspond to my finds

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 #1 Juvenile Metatarsal - IV

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#2 Phalanx II-2

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Ventral view

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#3 Phalanx IV not yet sure which one

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#3 Another Phalanx IV bone

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#4 Ungual Digit III... found two close match to each other

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#4 Ungual Juvie think its Digit IV but I need to verify after prepping

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Hand bones, carpals & ungual I found.  Using a hypracasaurus hand to show location of each.  Again these are all Edmontosaurus.

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Did clean one

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Found lots of vertebrae mostly caudals some complete with spines others just centrums

 

Centrum that black object to its left is another centrum shown below

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Caudal with processes 

Processes first visible

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Processes separated from centrum but complete

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Another caudal ..neural process mostly complete

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All there but needs work

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Thats it for now...need to take photo of teeth, hadro, theropod and other bones

 

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Wow! As a collector that prefers in situ collecting, it is amazing to see your photos and process. The matrix looks like a mixture of fine sand and clay.?.

Thanks for sharing!

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24 minutes ago, sharkdoctor said:

Wow! As a collector that prefers in situ collecting, it is amazing to see your photos and process. The matrix looks like a mixture of fine sand and clay.?.

Thanks for sharing!

Yep gravel concretions layer, sand and clay

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Awesome finds, makes me even more excited to be out there in July!

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@Troodon that’s very impressive. I’ve wanted to do this for years. Keep it up.

Do or do not. There is no try. - Yoda

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Always love your reports Frank, and this one is no exception :)

Those are some really cool finds!!

-Christian

Opalised fossils are the best: a wonderful mix between paleontology and mineralogy!

 

Q. Where do dinosaurs study?

A. At Khaan Academy!...

 

My ResearchGate profile

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I'm always excited to see your trip reports. What do you use to excavate until you find a bone out of curiosity?

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On 6/19/2019 at 5:56 PM, PaleoNoel said:

Awesome finds, makes me even more excited to be out there in July!

Good luck in july, always a challenge

 

6 hours ago, smt126 said:

I'm always excited to see your trip reports. What do you use to excavate until you find a bone out of curiosity?

Everyone has their approach but first I use a shovel to get close to the layer.  Then I like using a knife to get me through the top crunchy portion an inch or so and a bit below.  Some continue with that knife until they hit or see a bone but I like switching to an awl, blue /white handle in photo.  I switch to an xacto knife if I see bone or a tooth.  Rarely use anything else other than glue to field stabilize the specimens.

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@Troodon did you have to lease a plot of land? I know some people pay to get a small area to dig and whatever you find is yours...I think they are called “treasure hunts”. Just curious 

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35 minutes ago, Al Tahan said:

@Troodon did you have to lease a plot of land? I know some people pay to get a small area to dig and whatever you find is yours...I think they are called “treasure hunts”. Just curious 

Every location is different.  On these bone, we just know the landowners and have been collecting there for a very very long time does get compensated.

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Thanks for the info. I'm hoping to make it back out to Montana next year to look for dino material. We had a lot of fun doing it 2 years ago, but didnt use much for tools except a screwdriver and brush. We didn't really excavate any major areas though, just looked for things sticking out.

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