There's more where that came from...

So far this field season has been a smashing success. Our quarry, aka Rainbows and Unicorns, keeps producing marvelous material, including tyrannosaur cranial elements. Scott is still unearthing one turtle after another just to the southeast of the main quarry. We are certain that those turtles were deposited during the same event, which may turn out to be more extensive than we originally thought. We are still finding lots of charcoal, which supports our initial fire hypothesis. 

It certainly looks like we have our work cut out for us for many years to come. 

Next in line is getting the bigger jackets ready to fly on November 4th (stay tuned for some exciting helicopter footage and images), and, of course, continuing to prepare the material in the lab. 

 

Initially we thought this is cute little tooth is from a juvenile tyrannosaur, but after uncovering more of the jaw, we found that it is most likely a replacement tooth belonging to a subadult. 

 

This looks very much like the jugal complex (the cheek bones) of a tyrannosaur. We'll know for certain once we get it into the lab and prep it out of the rock.

 

Scott is diligently uncovering more and more turtle material in the Turtlepalooza Pit. Note the complete turtle carapace (dorsal shell) in the center of the image. It belongs to the extinct baenid turtle Neurankylus. 

 

Although found in Scott's Turtlepalooza Pit, this appears to be a cervical (neck) vertebra of a tyrannosaur. Most interesting, I'd say.

 

Just a smidgen shattered but otherwise in good shape, this is a tyrannosaur limb bone.

 

Here is Alan excitedly pointing at a nasal bone. The skull of an animal has lots of diagnostic features and is therefore very important in making taxonomic identifications. Luckily, Rainbows and Unicorns is packed with tyrannosaur skull material. Once prepped in the lab, we'll able to identify this fella down to species level.