Our Dinovember Festivities

Help us with the Utah Raptor Block!!

More information can be found here: https://www.gofundme.com/utahraptor <-- This link is possibly the most important link you can click today. This is a project that is currently stalled out because of funding issues. Please have a look and decide if you want to be a part of history by donating to a great cause.

Paleo Lab Thursday 11.17.2016

Today's adventures in the paleo lab started on a somber note. Our Dinovember dinosaur friends from the Museum of Natural Curiosity caught wind of our dearly deceased friend and felt it only just to honor it with a short, but very sweet, service graveside.

Below: The friends and family gather to pay their respects.

Below: Graveside services.

After such a dramatic beginning to our day, we needed some cheering up. Rick introduced us to Charlie who has been working with him off and on for quite some time (Quite how much time no one could clearly recall, so certainly a long while!) so we found out we are plus one team member! 

                         In secret, Rick took some great action shots of us working the matrix.

By the end of the day we had made some great progress. Below are two shots of Jodie's cleaning efforts. (Which are impeccable!)

 Now below is a shot of mine. I decided today that I wanted to locate as much of the bone as possible, since I had been concerned about leaning on the jacket and what be beneath my arm. Please note that you can click these images to enlarge them.

We will likely be taking a break from the lab for the week of Thanksgiving and pick back up right where we left off.

Stay tuned!

                                       

Thursday Thought

One interesting, and little-known, fact about Barosaurus is that two women were involved in its discovery, at a time when American paleontology was in the grips of the testosterone-fueled Bone Wars. The type specimen of this sauropod was discovered by the postmistress of Pottsville, South Dakota, Ms. E.R. Ellerman (who subsequently alerted the Yale paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh), and a South Dakota landowner, Rachel Hatch, guarded the remainder of the skeleton until it was eventually excavated, years later, by one of Marsh's assistants.

( Info Credit: http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/herbivorousdinosaurs/p/barosaurus.htm
 Photo Credit: www.prehistoric-wildlife.com)

A November to Remember

Welcome reader to an exciting journey which will travel through a historical discovery of prehistoric proportions!

                                 

Hello there! My name is Sara Wootton. My friend and colleague Jodie Visker and I are currently undertaking an amazing project with the careful guidance of Rick Hunter (our resident paleontologist) here in the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah.

Jodie and I started as staff/volunteer preparators in the paleontology lab on November 3rd 2016. It was unclear to us what lay in store, but we were excited to be a part of something on the other side of the viewing glass!

Rick gave us a detailed walk through of the lab, pointing out medical terminology charts and other artifacts we could use for reference materials. He showed us proper care of our tools, and gave us safety precautions and procedures. 

We were then acquainted with the air scribes, learning to plug them in correctly and ensure that they would not drop to the floor, and set to our first task of cleaning off bone fragments.

                                             

Our first fragments were coated in a thin layer of matrix (rock and loose sediment which encapsulates the bone fragments). The air scribes are powered by compressed air which remove layers of matrix bit by bit, often grain by grain.

On November 10th 2016 Rick assigned us to a new block. The above jacket contains some of  the vertebra of a barosaurus. Rick is giving us some pointers and we can begin our project. We are delighted to find that initially the matrix has been removing with relative ease. 

Now that we have had a chance to acquaint ourselves with the adhesives and accelerating agents which are common to the trade, we are ready to tackle this project with enthusiasm. 

The following images are of my first uninterrupted session with the air scribe today. Around 3 hours worth of work.

9:37am November 16th 2016

12:40pm November 16th 2016

THANK WikiPedia!! Below is a bit of information about our resident captive dinosaur!

Barosaurus (/ˌbæroʊˈsɔːrəs/ barr-o-sawr-əs) was a giant, long-tailed, long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur closely related to the more familiar Diplodocus. Remains have been found in the Morrison Formation from the Upper Jurassic Period of Utah and South Dakota (and possibly the Tendaguru Formation of Tanzania). It is present in stratigraphic zones 2-5.^[1]

The composite term Barosaurus comes from the Greek words barys (βαρυς) meaning "heavy" and sauros (σαυρος) meaning "lizard"; thus "heavy lizard".

Stay tuned for more great things from the PaleoLab!