Captain Badlands And Bone Digger Couldnt Wait For Spring..

[captain badlands]

Got together with bone digger and scooted out to the badlands today cause we just cant wait for more appropriate weather. Leaving early, we travelled about 2 hours to an area on private land near Duchess, Alberta. After touching base with the landowner and getting permission to do some surface collecting, we slogged it through the mud and ice for what turned out to be a really nice day, both in terms of the weather and some of the cool finds we made: croc teeth, therapod teeth, verts, stingray teeth, pieces of turtle, and some hadrosaur jawbone frags. Oh yeah, found a small but spankin croc scute.... we pretty much spent the entire day sliding around in the mud, stepping in cold puddles and just having a darned good time.... Many thanks to bone digger for getting me out of this stinky, noisy city if only for the day.... Also had the oppurtunity to learn some things, I'm still sorta new to fossil hunting....I am tired, sore and more than satisfied.... enough from me, here are some pics....

WARNING! multiple picture posts!

[captain badlands]

random picture of fluffy white puppy dogs

[JohnJ]

Amazing photos. I admire the effort.

[captain badlands]

[captain badlands]

[captain badlands]

[captain badlands]

[Shamalama]

Nice Haul! Love the in situ Pics. Did you salvage any of the full bones or leave them to the elements?

[tracer]

very cool place to be, and great finds. i asked my wife if we could move to canada this weekend. she said "no".

[captain badlands]

Nice Haul! Love the in situ Pics. Did you salvage any of the full bones or leave them to the elements?

Because of the laws governing the collection of fossils here (we are not permitted to do any actual excavation, suface collection only), we had to leave the full bones behind- though it would have been neat to excavate and jacket them.... Sadly, the Tyrell is likely not interested, and we cannot take them legally so these bones will probably be destroyed by the elements by summertime

The real tragedy is we found at least three spots that could contain MOST of a skeleton. I would actually like to see the laws relaxed a bit to permit enthusiasts to excavate and preserve specimens not deemed of interest by the academics.

[ashcraft]

I love situ pictures. Places like that remind me why I don't find vertebrate material. It's not that we don't have it, but there is just not enough exposure showing. You can see more bare dirt in one photo of the area you hunted then I would see in an entire afternoon of hard collecting.

Brent Ashcraft

[Nicholas]

Great finds and really beautiful photos of the area.

You had a good day!

Was the ground frozen?

[captain badlands]

Great finds and really beautiful photos of the area.

You had a good day!

Was the ground frozen?

Parts were still quite frozen, there was plenty of ice... as the day wore on, things got, well, slushy in spots... I hate having wet feet... it feels yukky! There were parts in the shade that still had frost on them, even by mid afternon with temps in the 1-5 degree Celsius range.... considering the time of year, we could not have asked for a better day to do this... I certainly wouldnt recommend going out alone, one bad slip and you will become a fossil yourself!

[2ynpigo]

Wow. Impressive to find so much vertebrate material in one day. Nice preservation too.

[bone digger]

Awesome pics Joe, I have to get back in the habit of taking more! It was great meeting you and we'll have to get out again soon if the weather holds up. I'll post pics of my finds tonight. I hope that spot didn't spoil ya to much lol!

[grampa dino]

Looks like you guys had a good day

There are lots of good spots out there.

[Phoenixflood]

Looks like and awesome trip! It's a beautiful place to collect! Thanks for the pictures! What type of claw is this???

[Rødvig]

Cool pix, gotta love this trip reports

Only once has there been dinosaur findings in Denmark ever (a tooth crown from a small therapod)

so I will consider taking a trip across the pond, That would increase my chances of finding some dinosaur parts significantly

Mikkel

[captain badlands]

@ phoenixflood: i think bone digger would have a better answer, he found it and I cant remember exactly what he said cause i was busy visually assaulting the immediate area... all I could say is "it looks like a claw"

[grampa dino]

From what I can see in the photo

It is the (killer claw) small theropod ungual

Saurornitholestes/ Dromaesaurid,

Saurornitholestes

Troodon

The very just slighty, I would think Dromaeosaurid

[Just Bob]

Those pictures are amazing! I love in situ pictures. Great report, thank you for posting it.

[bone digger]

Well here is my finds for the day! Not to bad for the first trip of the year, looks like there is going to be a bumper crop this year lol!

1. 5 small theropod teeth & tip of a Tyrannosaur tooth

2. crocodile teeth

3. small theropod claw, I would say it is most likely Saurornitholestes

4. turtle ungual

5. Champsosaur verts

6. pieces of 2 Ankylosaur armour scutes

7. part of a hadrosaur tooth battery with 4 teeth

8. 3 theropod phalanges

9. theropod bone, not sure what yet

10. piece of Hadrosaur bone with 2 small bite marks

11. croc scutes

[bone digger]

forgot the pic :jig:

[MikeD]

Very nice.

[scmense]

Thanks for sharing. That terrain gets my adrenalin flowing.