Last Three Days in the Judith River fm.- 7/31-8/2

[PaleoNoel]

I just wrapped up my awesome 3 week fossil hunting trip with Paleoprospectors and I'm excited to get home and share more of my finds with everyone. It was an ambitious undertaking on my part as I would be out fossil hunting in hot and dry conditions for such an extended amount of time with no parents within a thousand mile radius, that's not to say I wasn't looked after and I'd like to thank all of the staff and participants that accompanied me during this excursion. 

Tonight I'll share with you the pictures and stories from the last three days of my time in Montana.

Wednesday involved a lot of hiking and not a lot of production in terms of fossil finds, my best finds included a shred of theropod tooth, a small fragment of theropod bone and some petrified wood pictured below-

Here's a view of small portion of the area we were hunting

 

My group decided to call it a day early as it was 105 degrees Fahrenheit in the valley at one point making hiking nearly unbearable.

 

 

[PaleoNoel]

The next day was slightly less hot and a bit more productive. It consisted of me and two others hiking from one spot to another across a huge area of buttes, washes and gullies.

A view of our first spot (the further butte) which had provided two associated bones several years prior. When we stopped there, only scraps of bone were found for dino material, but one of my fossil hunting buddies found a nice pine cone which was coming out of the layer of lignite making that the highlight of the hour.

A view from where we had parked of what I call Pyramid Butte on the  right site, I had never found anything there during my first time in Montana but this time around a participant found a sun-bleached but good sized premaxillary tooth from a Tyrannosaurid.

 

Out of frame and to the lower left of Pyramid Butte we stopped at a site where a couple had found a huge section of ceratopsid frill during my first year- it was a cool and uncommon find in this formation especially compared to Hell Creek and Lance. They haven't got around to prepping the big piece but I have a picture on my computer at home of the frill before I helped them jacket it so I'll share that once I'm back if you're interested. Here is a cool piece of frill I picked up from around the original digging site. 

 

Judith River frill bits were my best finds of the day, but I also found some hadrosaur spit teeth, ossified tendons and a shred of tyrannosaur tooth.

[connorp]

These posts of yours have been incredible to follow. Thanks for sharing!

 

Since your expedition is complete now, do you feel it was worth it? I know I have always wanted to go on one of these trips, but they certainly aren't cheap.

[PaleoNoel]

Friday was the best of the final few days. A small group of participants went to the microsite from day 1 instead of hunting ammonites in the bearpaw formation in another section of the ranch. Due to the fact that paleoprospectors isn't coming back to this ranch for several years, Steve gave us the green light to sift through some of the sediment at this microsite, which is usually against the rules under normal circumstances to ensure that there will be fossils there for future weeks.

I started the day with some cool pieces of petrified wood, some of which had some crystallization on it.

A view of where I was finding the wood.

 

Soon after I began sifting and eventually found my first theropod tooth of the day- a dromaeosaurid tooth possibly belonging to saurornitholestes.

 

As I continued to sift through this area I found some more cool fossil including a nice croc tooth, some tiny bones and hadrosaur spitters.

And my last good find of the day- another small dromaeosaur tooth, this time lower quality and more stout than the first- I was thinking possibly Dromaeosaurus itself.

Another participant found a really nice premax tooth from what was probably a young tyrannosaur (Gorgosaurus or Daspletosaurus).

 

 

Peace out Montana, you've been good to me! Until next time!

[PaleoNoel]

11 minutes ago, connorp said:

These posts of yours have been incredible to follow. Thanks for sharing!

Since your expedition is complete now, do you feel it was worth it? I know I have always wanted to go on one of these trips, but they certainly aren't cheap.

You're right in that they're not cheap, but I feel like they were absolutely worth it. I always have a great time being in the field, finding fossils and meeting new people who share the same interests as me.

[connorp]

9 minutes ago, PaleoNoel said:

You're right in that they're not cheap, but I feel like they were absolutely worth it. I always have a great time being in the field, finding fossils and meeting new people who share the same interests as me.

Was the expedition you did a special three-week one or three one-week expeditions back to back?

[PaleoNoel]

9 hours ago, connorp said:

Was the expedition you did a special three-week one or three one-week expeditions back to back?

3 weeks back to back

[Darktooth]

I really envy you. I wish I could spend that much time on any kind of fossilhunt, let alone Dinos!

[fossilsonwheels]

Congrats on the finds. That Saurornitholestes is a beauty !

[PaleoNoel]

On 8/7/2019 at 3:10 AM, fossilsonwheels said:

Congrats on the finds. That Saurornitholestes is a beauty !

Thanks! I was happy to find it, first Judith River dromaeosaur tooth in my collection.