Skull Puzzle

After our extensive prospecting trip June, I was very eager return to Wyoming and poke around. With excavation permits in hand, we were finally allowed to begin making some headway in excavating large sites. On this most recent trip, however, we were limited to a week or so in the field. Despite the brevity of the trip, we made some great progress. At one of our most exciting localities we completed the process of vacuuming every last bone fragment that had weathered out of the original bone layer. Last year we surface collected an upper and lower jaw from a large hadrosaurid dinosaur here. Several well preserved bones remain in the rock, but before we can begin removing them we always want to salvage as many of the broken pieces as possible. Who knows, maybe that set of odd fragments can be assembled into a puzzle piece which itself may connect to one of the more complete elements in the rock? When you're dealing with what may be the only skull of a new species of dinosaur, it's always good to take one's time. I snatched up a large piece of bone which looks as though it represents the majority of one of the many paired skull bones! We are very excited to return here when we have more time. (Photo by Terrence Cook).

 

Collecting every eroded dinosaur fragment. Better bones are embedded in the sandstone, but will require more time (and perhaps a rock saw) to retrieve next year. Photo by Terrence Cook