Shortly before I graduated high school, I met Jack Horner and he
invited me to dig with the Museum of the Rockies. Although I've been
digging for many enjoyable years since then, 2001 remains the best
summer of my entire life. Not only was I in Montana, digging up a T. rex, but I also
met some incredible people who are still some of my closest friends.
Sadly, I had not yet gone digital, so there are very few scanned
pictures from that summer. Someday I'll break out the scanner again.
Someday.
These were the glory days of the Hell Creek Project (Phase I).
Over 30 people in camp, multiple dig sites, visiting researchers, and
of course, media everywhere. With the premiere of Jurassic Park III
only a month away, everyone wanted a piece of the action. Discover
Magazine sent out photographers, a German news crew stayed with us for
weeks, and I made a brief and fuzzy appearance on the NBC nightly news.
My mom was so proud.
C-rex, my first quarry.
Noted for
its articulated gastralia and being larger than Sue. Aside from a
partial dentary and a scapula, it was mostly just ribs and articulated
vertebrae. Lots and lots of ribs. Big ribs.
From left to right:
Discover Magazine photographer: Trevor? Trevin?
Kari - still comes back to visit & volunteer now and then
The man, the myth, the legend: Joe Cooley. The man - still my favorite
crew chief, he got Laura and I addicted to fieldwork. The myth - burned
the only copy of his thesis. The legend - Made bone rain from the sky.
Married his sugar mama to become a househusband. Spawned a child.
Laura Wilson - master of the universe
Sam - MIT student? Seen here uncovering a scapula.
Kari undercutting one of the many rib jackets.
Here's Laura proving that she is more than willing to sacrifice her dignity for paleontology. Give her a job!
The vert jackets from C-rex were over 6 feet long and 2 or 3 feet wide,
which meant tunnels were big enough to crawl through - important when
you need to plaster the underside of a tunnel, but not so good when the
wet burlap falls on your face...
I also spent a day helping with overburden at X-rex. Originally named
the Portuguese Death March Site after the Portugirls (3 students from
Portugal), Jack said the toe bone looked like another T. rex.
It turned out to be a huge hadrosaur tail (hence the new name X-rex)
with some rather nice skin impressions. The C-rex crew took the long
boat ride and hellish hike out to the X-rex satellite camp to knock the
hill back a few feet so they could get the tip of the tail. The next
day they discovered the tail took a 90 degree bend straight into the
quarry wall. We didn't help them again.
