Sticky!

This is an awesome group that I had come through today at the quarry from my home state, NC. FINALLY someone from NC. I'm pretty sure the entire family were dinosaur fanatics. Normally, you know, the youngest child is, or the scientist mom or dad dragged the poor kids along for a trip. Nope.

They were all super excited. It was wonderful listening to the boys ask their dad about some of the rocks we saw when I couldn't quite give a full answer and watching them parcour up the hill wherever there weren't fossils around.

Or, as we say at the quarry, they were Stokesosaurus!

So OF COURSE this was a perfect group to take up Short Track. And we had the perfect amount of time to take them on it, too. It was even a slow day; this one group tripled our number of visitors for the day.

I couldn't resist. I had to claim taking them because of home. This is pretty normal between the three of us interns; anyone is fair game to take on Short Track for anyone unless there is some commonality. And with me being a month out from going home, I was really glad to hear some city names and such that were familiar.

One of my favorite things to do with people is at the last stop on the tour; the sauropod vertebra. There are several fragments that have eroded off of it over time and are now stacked near the bone. These fragments are fun; when I take people up there, I like to teach them a classic geologist/paleontologist test; the lick test!

You see, we like to use all of our senses; taste, vision, touch, smell... you get the idea. And people never really think of licking rocks were bone. But it does work; evaporates tend to taste salty, and bones stick to your tongue.

If you don't believe me, here is one of the boys proving it for me.

You see, because the bones are so porous, capillary action happens between the bone and the liquid on your tongue whenever there is a fresh break. Basically the liquid wants to run somewhere, and between sticking to surfaces and itself is able to work its way up the pour, leaving a spot of your tongue a little drier and basically making it stick. (This is the same principle that trees use to get water from the ground to the top branches.)

Long story short, rocks aren't as perfectly porous as bone and don't do this nearly as well. Of the people in each group that I offer pieces to, normally there is one brave person that will try it first, laugh when it works, and the others will follow, crying out with surprise when it sticks as much as it does. I had one archeologist a few weeks ago that I showed this to that was shocked that it worked with fossilized bone, as he was used to it working with more recent bones but had never tried with fossils.

Honestly, I'd rather try this with dinosaur bone that's fossilized than human... but it works!

As for the NC family that came through today, thanks for letting me use your photograph (the one time I leave my camera behind...), and I hope the rest of your camping trip in the west is incredible! Safe travels back home, and hope to run into you the next time you find yourselves at our museum!!