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Katie Kent ’05 filming Thea Hinkle ’05 at work on location in
Utah for “Jurassic High: Fossil Detectives at Webb” DVD
Hadrosaurs and Helicopters
(continued from page 1)
Duncan Everhart, one of our volunteers,
announced that he had found something
big on the side of a steep canyon. The
next day he took us to the site. It was
impressive, as scattered down the side
of the canyon lay two hundred bone
fragments. At the top of this fragment
trail, was a three-foot-long mass of
bone protruding from rock. Field
identifications are notoriously incorrect
as one can only see some of
the bones and they are often
exposed at odd angles due
to erosion. But based on
size and the way the bone
was concentrated in a single
mass, we guessed it was
either the pelvis or skull of a
large dinosaur. Because the
trip was ending the next day,
we decided not to excavate. We collected
the eroded bone fragments, covered the
bone mass with plastic bags and loose rock
to protect it from the elements and left,
planning to return in 2003.
People often ask me, “Won’t someone
find the specimen and collect it first?”
The answer is no. We usually work in
very remote areas where few people
wander. In fact, we nearly didn’t work
in this area either. The Summer Peccary
Trip had been going out to Montana to
collect dinosaurs and other vertebrates
for most of the 1990’s, but by 1998,
our Montana research project started to
Based on size and
the way the bone was
concentrated in a single
mass, we guessed it was
either the pelvis or skull
of a large dinosaur.
wind down. About this
time, my wife and I bought
40 acres of unimproved
land in a remote area of
southern Utah adjacent to
BLM-managed land. Soon
thereafter, this BLM land
was designated as part of
Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument, or my
new neighbor. This chance
development inspired me
to start work with Webb
students in this relatively
unexplored region of
Utah using the “Lofgren
Ranch” as a base camp. We now camp
on my land and walk from there into the
monument whose badlands yield fossils
of Late Cretaceous vertebrates. Our camp
is seven miles down a bumpy dirt road
from the highway, so few venture our way.
I prefer this isolation as it enhances the
camping and field expedition experience
for everyone, especially students. We
received a permit to collect in the national
monument in 1998 and have been
working there ever since. Not once in
those seven years have I seen a non-Webb
person in the badlands.
I was sure our pelvis or
skull was safe.
The focus of
the Summer Peccary
Trip in 2003 was to
evaluate the big find
from 2002. In general,
there are two types of
federal permits: (1) a
surface permit where
you can collect specimens exposed on
the surface and dig to a depth of 41 cm;
and (2) an excavation permit where you
can dig deeper in the process of removing
something large like a partial skeleton.
Even though we only had a surface
permit, we were granted permission to
excavate deeper than 41 cm to determine
exactly what was there. We did, and it
was evident that a pair of lower jaws
was positioned on top of the big mass
of bones. This could only mean that
Duncan had found a skull with its lower
jaws still in articulation; an extremely rare
find. We were thrilled. We plastered the
exposed bone and buried the specimen
again, planning to return in 2004 with
an excavation permit. Because of its size
and remote location, it was obvious that a
helicopter would be needed to get it back
to camp.
Soon after returning to Webb, I
applied for the permit. At this same time,
we were also involved in a project to
produce an educational DVD with the
exhibit design firm Think Jacobson &
Roth to show to museum tour groups.
Think Jacobson & Roth came up with
the idea to have the DVD’s story revolve
around a “students as fossil detectives”
theme and include footage of the then
upcoming helicopter extraction. We
decided on the title “Jurassic High:
Fossil Detectives at Webb” and shot the
museum location footage in June. Our
budget did not allow bringing a film crew
out to Utah, so Katie Kent ’05 was trained
to use a high tech movie camera and we
rented one for the Utah part of the shoot.
In June, we also received our excavation
permit to remove the skull by helicopter
so we were good to go.
Excitement was high as we set up
camp at the “Lofgren Ranch” in July.
Our student team included all current
Rogers Peccary Scholars and J. Kong ’05,
J. Liu ’05, V. Charoonratana ’05, S.
Cook ’05, J. Gluckstein ’05, P. Aguilera ’05,
Rogers Peccary Scholars (l-r): T. Hinkle ’05, C. Johnson ’06,
E. D’Amico ’05, A. Greening ’06, S. Lewis ’06, M. Torres ’06,
J. Baron ’06, J. Taylor ’06, M. Issa ’05 and K. Kent ’05
M. Pastrano ’07, T. Lane ’07, D. Ugolick ’07,
G. Shih ’08, F. Ali-Khan ’08 and
D. Issa ’08. Faculty and other adults
included A. Graybeal, D. Schuhl, S.
Kingsbury, J. Enders ’01, Everhart,
Museum Board Chairman Larry Ashton ’70,
2 Q u e s t