'Wow' Moments for an Artist on a Dinosaur Dig

One of the greatest parts of this job is meeting so many fascinating, brilliant, and fun people. Evan certainly stands out at the top of that list.  The BBPI field team first met Evan as a student in Philadelphia, partially for his work creating the amazing animation (below).  Evan has joined our field expeditions several years now, and will always be welcome with us.

This is a guest post by Jason Poole, BBPI Crew Chief and Director of Fossil Preparation.

Why Dig up Dinosaurs?

I could just as easily ask why not? It's like a real life treasure hunt! And without digging up dinosaurs, we would know very little about them. We can learn a lot about life on earth and how it changes over time by looking at these guys, which is becoming increasingly important now that the planet is changing so rapidly. But they are also worth learning about for their own sake. To be able to uncover and look at something that no person in history has ever seen before is very humbling. It's also a great way to get people into thinking critically, wondering, and just doing something physical and outside. There's something oddly satisfying about working with your hands when you spend most of your week at a desk.  

What is your favorite part of the process of dinosaur excavation?

I really enjoy prospecting, as it's nice to explore and hike, but I think my favorite part is when someone finds some in situ bone, and the process of slowly following the bone to see how much further it goes. It's a slow moving process but also quite the adrenaline rush...especially when we find a scorpion in the pit.

What is your favorite memory of being out with us in the field?

Hoo boy, too many things to name! Everything from our redneck commute chatter (as well as talking about the Kuh's and the gOOOAts) -- to clearing half a hillside to find more in-place bone for a day when Rick just finds a huge chunk of sauropod femur laying on the ground 10 feet away from where I was digging. I also really liked being dispatched to that spot on the hillside in the woods by BLM to take out that chunk of Triceratops humerus, which RIck carried out on his back. I also really enjoyed helping newer folks get their search image up and running, and enabling them to make some super cool discoveries toward the end of last year.  Then there was holding a chunk of rock from the K/T (Pg?) Boundary, which is pretty humbling. I think the absolute best, though, was the fire we had out in the desert at night. And introducing people to shooting stars who had never seen them before. Especially the eerie sound of the Coyotes in the distance while being mesmerized by the cosmos with no light pollution. 

 

Which Jason is better looking? Which is smarter?

I think it's pretty clear that Jason is the better looking one, while Jason is the smarter one.  I mean, anyone can see that. It's pretty obvious, really.

As an artist besides digging for dinosaurs what experiences where wow moments for you?

There's just so much to take in. As an artist I can't help but constantly be observing and analyzing shapes and motions of the things I see. With the landscapes out there there were so many incredible inspirational vistas. You can't help but want to photograph and sketch things. I also remember one night sitting on the porch looking into the woods, and my eyes were gathering inspiration from how the light fell on a tree a couple yards in front of me. It made a shape that looked like a weird tree-man and I felt compelled to immediately draw it so I wouldn't forget it. I also met so many characters out there that one can't help but use it as inspiration for stories of all kinds. Then there's just being surrounded by so many fossils. I can't help but think about the things we were finding and trying to reconstruct and think things out in visual form. 

 

You are very active in rhino conservation and have a deep interest in other living animals, how did this play into your time out with us?

I'm always inspired by observing living animals. So every time we ran into a coyote or a pronghorn I would get very excited. Not those 'mountain goats' though...I'm still convinced they don't exist. I also thoroughly liked to watch the hummingbirds that would chase all the other ones away from the feeders at camp, the owl that tried to take your head off, seeing raptors in the mountains, or listening to the little pika alarm calls. I think exposure to lots of different ecosystems in a short trip is really cool. And seeing how things play off one another helps one appreciate the complexities of nature. You also can't help but think about the ecosystems of the geologic formations we are working in, and how despite being very different types of environments during their days, they must have been just as equally diverse and interwoven. 

 

You have spent hundreds of hours in the fossil lab preparing fossils that we have collected in years past. How do you feel seeing both sides of fossil preservation “Field and lab”?

I think it's really important to understand the whole process. It's pretty interesting, because my first exposure to working with fossils was opening jackets in the lab. So I got pretty good at excavating jackets, and cleaning and piecing bones, but had only rudimentary knowledge of how they were actually collected. It was really great to complete the picture and participate in the creation of a BIG jacket. I really didn't fully grasp the trenching and flipping process for something so big until i helped do it. It brings a newfound appreciation for some of those Dreadnoughtus jackets I had to help open, knowing what went into them. Also, piecing things together in the lab helped prep me for better mental visualization of fitting together fragments found in the field. 

How important is citizen science to you?

Citizen science is extremely important to me. I spend every Sunday morning interpreting natural history topics to museum visitors. I also am always trying to inspire others to do their own observations. There is so much science that 'everyday people' contribute to. At the Natural History Museum of LA County, we are always encouraging people to jump onto iNaturalist to record their observations. There are so many things new to the area that were discovered by regular people. I also rely on tools like eBird when looking for places to go bird watching. In a similar fashion, I will use citizen science gathered data from various other programs to determine when and where to go to see things like sea turtles or whales. I also truly believe that the reason some people are anti-science is simply because they don't understand it. Or it hasn't been explained to them in a digestible way. If you can enable someone else to actively contribute to science, it might inspire them to think more critically, and generally understand things they might not have thought about before. 

 

Be sure to learn more about the BBPI and how you can join the 2017 Field Expedition at Experiment.com/BBPaleo2017.  Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.