Yep. There's my 'proceed with caution' lecture. Now let's talk about dinosaurs.
We didn't plan to close the quarry. However, when I showed up at the office that morning to meet my boss and drive out there (we carpool from Price because the BLM vehicle is more reliable on those roads), he informed me that the conditions looked pretty bad and that I had the day to take care of a little business at the post office in the morning and then help out in the USUE museum prep lab in Price afterward. He gave me directions (as it is not connected to the museum) and I was on my way.
Sort of.
As stated in a recent post, my sense of direction is pretty awful. However, I knew the place was across from Pioneer Park, and I was completely sure of how to get there. That said, I had never seen the door closed at the prep lab. Mike took me there early on to introduce me to Carrie, the woman in charge there, and we just walked right in.
Um. Well. The door wasn't open. So initially I walked into the wrong door, knew I was in the wrong place (because it was offices...) and backed out quickly. Mike had instructed me to go to the museum (slogan: introduce your monsters to ours!!) if I got lost, and I figured they would know if she was in that day, so I headed over there.
"Oh, Carrie? She just ran that way. Go ahead!"
...well, not only was she in, but I almost walked right past here before I saw her. It turns out that they had a large 4th grade class coming to tour the museum that day, and she and Lloyd (in charge of exhibits and education) were giving a tour. I met Lloyd my first day in town when I went to explore the museum prior to meeting up with Mike, and the two of suggested that I tag along to hear the tour before heading back to the lab with Carrie for the day.
Quick side story about meeting Lloyd: it was completely unintentional. I was looking in the lab that they have on display to the public where they do some basic prep work. They had tooth that I didn't quite recognize in the window, waiting for someone to work on it, and apparently my nose came a little close to the glass. He happened to be inside, laughed, and asked if I wanted to come in and take a closer look.Of course I couldn't turn him down on that!
It turns out that it was a titanothere tooth. Repeatedly as he moved around the museum working and saw me looking at an exhibit he would stop and tell me more about it, the story of how it was found, and more.For example, he came from a place where finding fossilized giant clams was just normal. Then one day in Utah, he was out exploring with another paleontologist. He picked up a fragment and tossed it aside, used to it being common.
"What was that, Lloyd?"
"Oh, just a giant clam fragment.""A WHAT?!"
...apparently they hadn't found one of those in the Manco shale of Utah before.
I still hold that the Manco shale is evil.
So anyway...No matter how much you know about a subject, always accept a tour from the folks in charge. Generally you'll learn a few things and hear some good stories. So I followed Carrie into the paleontology section and kept my ears open.
It turns out that before coming to Utah, Carrie received a masters with a thesis based on the sand layer at no other than Ashfall Fossil Beds. After the tour, we had a wonderful time talking about the area and the people back there. It was so great to talk to someone who contributed to the research that has been done on that place. However, she decided that writing papers wasn't for her, and felt that her calling was more to work in prep and instill in students and volunteers the safety training she had received herself back in Nebraska, as well as to improve conservation. Sometimes paleontology can require some pretty nasty chemicals, and we are still learning how to stabilize bones long term. She really enjoys improving both of these areas whenever and wherever she can.
Anyway, back to the tour (this conversation happened later in the lab as she gave me a tour of collections.)Our first stop was actually right inside the museum entrance. Mostly because everyone loves this guy. If you looked at him and thought "Velociraptor," then either you can't tell the scale from the picture or you saw Jurassic Park. You see, everyone thinks that Velociraptor is a lot bigger than it really is because that's what they were called in the movie. At the time it was produced, this guy was just about to be discovered. He does end up justifying the movie, but the name is wrong.
Meet Utahraptor. Velociraptor only came up to his stomach. Poor baby. Found in Utah, the best bones from him are on display, with a few others down in collections. Anything not found was modeled after other raptors.
However, despite the name, this isn't the state dinosaur. Actually, it is the allosaurs, largely due to Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry being as famous as it is. After all, its one of the largest assemblages of them. So from here, we moved on to talking about allosaurs.See his shadow on the wall, just waiting for me to bring him up? Beware the mighty Jurassic predator!
So the kids on the tour lost all interest in the rocks she was talking about pretty quick as soon as they saw this. It's basically a reconstruction of Morrison Formation, or part of it, with an allosaur, stegosaur, sauropod, and another herbivore whose name escapes me. They loved it.
How could they not? The exhibits here were beautifully done, especially this one!
But some of the less flashy exhibits proved to be equally if not more interesting.
For example, here is one that was found at CLDQ. Called an allosaur "embryo," its an egg with a double shell that prevent the baby (developed inside based on scans) from being able to get enough air or break out. This still happens today in chickens; if they get scared, they'll keep their eggs inside them longer than they should, throwing off a delicately balanced process and only laying it later, after the shell is too thick for the baby to hatch.Another example was the paleopathology exhibit. I really, really like paleopathology by the way, because I think it tells more of the story than just the bones alone. These vertebrae would have been injured and healed by fusing together.
Another example in the exhibit was this allosaur vertebra, only this one only partially healed. It was found with a puncture hole in it, found to be just the right size for a stegosaur spike. Such a spike is displayed in it (it was not found this way) to show visitors the fit. It healed slightly, but the hole never went away completely. The best part though, I think, is that this may be evidence that allosaurs would try to eat stegosaurs (or at least this one did) and that stegosaurs did use their tail spikes as defensive weapons.Looking at this.... ouch.
Now that that allosaur shadow is done staring me down, let's talk about more recent things.
See, after I had toured the paleontology section, I continued to shadow the kids as they got an archeology tour from Lloyd.The museum basically has three different culture's types of houses represented, all from different times. The most recent is the most familiar; the tipi, house of the Ute!
These things are surprisingly roomy by the way. When I snapped this picture, I believe the entire class was in there, about to be scared by Lloyd sneaking around behind the tipi and roaring like a bear. Have I mentioned I like this guy? These things didn't actually appear until the 1400's, when horses were reintroduced and the Native American tribes became more mobile in their hunting as a result.
This one is called a pit house. Ironically settlers later used very similar shelters, called dugouts, on the prairies. This one, however, is modeled after the Freemont people.The oldest type of house, however, is the most complex. Modeled after the pre-Puebloan Hovenweep Castle, it's really complex.
Rumor has it that there is one somewhere that people can explore. I intend to go there as soon as I can find out where it is...Fun fact about this exhibit: it used to have people in it.
Then they realized that, if the thing were to scale, the people would be about eight feet tall.
They weren't that tall.
The museum thus removed the people.
Other interesting exhibits on this side of the museum included a doll carrier, much like those that were used for babies by some cultures, bones of animals contemporary with ancient peoples, and a basket with handles made of human hair (Lloyd explained that human hair is stronger than animal hair because it isn't hollow, as we don't use it to keep warm.)
One of the most exciting however is the Huntington Mammoth. The old male may have been one of the last of the Columbian Mammoths in the area, and was found near human spears, suggesting hunting as a cause of death. You can tell he was old due to the fusion in the neck vertebrae (a sign of major arthritis) and by his worn down last set of teeth.
Anyway....
Let's go back to paleontology, shall we?
Just look at that claw!....and yet thoes teeth... so little... such a weird group of critters...
Also, meet the Huntington Mammoth. The real one. They couldn't mount these parts because they're really delicate, especially the tusks. However, they are reluctant to preserve the tusks by adding consolidant (glue to hold it together) because there is the chance of DNA being found, and glues would destroy those chances.
Also worth noting is this guy, found near the side of the road. He was completely curled backwards in the gooseneck position, which is really common in animals with longer necks as they dry up after death; the heads curl back over the body. Very common in dinosaurs. I couldn't get a better picture because the shelf didn't move but you get the idea.
Last but not least is an awesome project that I got to help a little bit with and hope to continue helping with in my free time this summer.
Meet Dippy. Dippy is a diplodocus. The real one is in the Carnegie museum, and the story goes that the museum was extremely proud of its nearly complete sauropod and sent ten casts to museums all over the world. I've seen the one in the British science museum, and a cast of a cast that can be found in an airport in the North East. Back when it was thought that these guys dragged their tails, the British had a box of extra end tail vertebrae to replace those that were stolen by guests! (I suppose it was just too easy to take a souvenir, and too common for them to bother trying to prevent it.) From my reading, I believe they still have a box down there. Another European museum owns the original molds, which this guy was cast from much later. It's a cement sauropod that used to stand outside in Germany, and after many years of being damaged was taken down and sent to USU to keep. Carrie has been working on repairing it basically since she started working at the museum, and here at the tail end of the project it looks beautiful in comparison to the original. Its taken a lot time and research, but she's done a beautiful job. Today I helped paint on a liquid made to strengthen the cement (this layer will eventually need to be 1/8 of an inch thick.) It makes it less brittle, and hopefully will allow it to stand outside some day. The tail is pretty much done and laying out, twisting and turning around collections to fit it all. I've heard about Dippy, and seen a lot of the casts, but I'm hoping to someday go see the original. However, I love the story behind her, and getting work on one of the casts (even if it is a later one) is an experience I will cherish.She, like some of my early mentors in prep work, expected me to get bored and leave early.
Nope. I fully plan on helping her as much as she's willing to let me and time allows this summer. Hello, Dippy. Nice to finally meet you face to face.
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