It's a Hard Rock Life...

Welcome to My Life.

2010-07-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

We had a BYU film team come out to Saints and Sinners a few weeks ago. The first link is a video they made to promote our work on the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences website. Included in this video is also some footage taken last summer at DNM 16 where Abydosaurus mcintoshi was found. The others are interviews with a co-worker and my boss.

http://vimeo.com/13470559
http://vimeo.com/13401318
http://vimeo.com/13399593

More of Saints & Sinners Quarry.

2010-07-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

Below are more pictures of the Saints & Sinners quarry. In most of them, I am standing on a ledge-ish thing overlooking the quarry and the valleys around it.

Dig site and safety fence. In the top right corner you can see a green square. That's the air compressor.
The highway in the distance is Highway 40. Colorado is to the left. We don't actually drive on this stretch of higway very often. The entrance to the quarry and Jensen, UT is to the right.

Standing in the back of the Supertruck.

Be sure to check out the next post as well. It's new, too!

Meet Marty and the 2nd to Last Week in the Field.

2010-07-19T12:54:00.000-07:00

This last week in Vernal was... different. I guess that's the only way to put it. In order to get more done, and find more bones than we have over the past few weeks, we started pulling large blocks to take back to the lab and work on there. They did this last summer and decided to do it again this summer.

We took the Supertruck down again this week. Mariah and Brayden drove the pick-up and Marty and I got to spend some more quality time together. (Yes, I named him. He has officially earned a special place in my heart.)

Marty is a Ford F550. And I was informed by my co-worker Brayden that I looked small driving it. That thing is a beast. These pictures were taken on Thursday and Friday of last week.

As an unofficial birthday present (at least, I like to call it that considering I didn't make a big deal about the fact that it was my birthday...), I got to operate the crane for awhile.
The red box surrounds where the air compressor is sitting and where the other vehicles are parked. We had to do a little "off roading" to get the Supertruck to the quarry.
Driving a block up to the pick-up.
Almost there!
Loading another pallet of blocks.

Success!

Tut, Tut, it Looks Like Rain!

2010-07-04T16:45:00.001-07:00

This last week in Vernal was a pretty interesting one. I don't have much to post right now, but here's what I do have. We worked Tuesday to Friday this last week. On Tuesday night, my co-workers and I went exploring in an area close to our campsite in Dinosaur National Monument. We climbed some rocks, watched for deer, and were eaten, once again, (at least I was) by bugs. Below are some of the rocks we climbed on and some shots of the Green River. It was getting late in the evening so I didn't have much light to work with, but I still like the way they turned out.

Wednesday night, Dr. Britt came out with a couple of guys from his Geol 100 class and a guy from his ward. They stayed at the campsite with us that night and spent the day with us in the field on Thursday. We also got hit with a pretty nasty thunderstorm on Thursday afternoon. We had thunder and lightning right above us on the cliff-edge and headed for the cars. I'm glad we did because shortly after, it started DUMPING rain on us. Below are some pictures of the storm from inside the Yukon. After a while, we started seeing little streams running through the mud outside the car. The storm lasted about a half an hour, during which, I did take a short cat-nap, which was welcome indeed. Crazy stuff! Clean-up was rough and we didn't get much done for the rest of the day. When the bosses said "Head for the cars!" it was a "drop everything and go" type situation. All of our tools were wet, streams of mud had filled in some of the holes we had been working in, and the ground was soaked, making working with exposed bones nearly impossible without destroying them. I admit it was fun being in a storm that big. Thunder and lightning like you wouldn't believe and tons of rain on top of that.

Way Past Due...

2010-06-25T17:33:00.001-07:00

At last! An update! Below are 6 new posts! (Start at "May and Beginning of June" post and work your way up. You may need to click on the "Older Posts" link to find the first one.) Enjoy!

Saints & Sinners Findings

2010-06-25T17:03:00.001-07:00

The last two weeks have been exciting, but boring at the same time for me as far as discoveries at the quarry. Two weeks ago, I found the tip of this guy:

I finished uncovering the whole thing by the end of the first week and spent all of this last week working on pulling it out of the ground, finally popping it off at about 11:00 Thursday morning (the day we headed home). The sharpie is there for scale. This is an articulated pelvis from the small theropod we've been working on.

This is an artist's depiction of a coelophysis pelvis. In all dinosaurs, the pelvis is made up of these three bones, the ilium, ischium, and pubis. In this particular dinosaur, the three bones fuse together as the dinosaur ages, indicating that the one I found is from an adult specimen.

This was taken at the beginning of this last week. I hadn't dug too far into the rock at this point, but you can see how close I work to the ledge. In this area when you reach the edge, there is a 2 foot drop, another small ledge and then it slopes down into the valley. (You'll notice I'm in the shade in this picture. THANK YOU JEFF!! for the shade! It's nice to think about what a few poles, some special shade fabric, and some fans will do to the temperature!)

In the process of pulling the pelvis out of the ground, I found my first skull element!! This is a maxilla.

This is a skull of a mosasaur (large marine reptile), but the skull structure is very similar. The skull element labeled "max" is the maxilla and is a part of the upper jaw that houses some of the specimen's teeth. (The one I found is reversed from this one.)

Success!!! I felt so accomplished when I finally pulled this out of the ground. Small, but awesomely cool at the same time!! By far THE COOLEST thing I have ever found.

Officially!

2010-06-25T16:08:00.000-07:00

My coworker, Andrew, came up to the rest of us sometime last week and handed us these papers and told us to fill them out. So naturally, I did. I am now an Official Dinosaur Hunter. :O)

Saints & Sinners Quarry, Jensen, UT

2010-06-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

Whew! I think I'm FINALLY up to date... almost. Here's 3 full weeks in a nutshell. :O)

First off, MAPS!

To get to Vernal, we travel through Provo Canyon. When we hit Heber City, we head East on Highway 40. The turnoffs to Dinosaur National Monument and the Saints and Sinner's Quarry are all on Highway 40.

Turnoff from Highway 40 onto Highway 149 runs right through Dinosaur National Monument.

Vernal and Surrounding Areas!
Red square- Vernal, UT. This city is MUCH bigger than Moab. There's a Lowe's and WalMart here and multiple fast food places.
Blue square- Jensen, UT - See larger map below.
Yellow square- Dinosaur National Monument "Headquarters" We shower here. - See larger map below.
Purple Square- Green River Campground - See larger map below.
Orange square- Saints and Sinners Quarry - See larger map below.

Jensen, UT and Dinosaur National Monument!
Green square- Sinclair Gas Station and L&M Deli place
Purple square- Park HQ (showers)
Red arrow- to DNM 16 (pretty sure), where Abydosaurus mcintoshi was found.
Pink square- Green River Campground- camping right on the river!

Saints & Sinners Quarry!
Purple square (top left)- Jensen, UT
Yellow line- road to quarry
Yellow box- general area of quarry

Secondly, a few pictures of the area.

When I say I work on the edge of a cliff, I mean it. It gets a little scary sometimes (like when you slip on a ledge, look down, and see there is nothing to catch you if you lose your footing even more than you have already...), but we've added some safety features to our cliff that makes working there a little more bearable...

Over the edge of the cliff and down a little ways, is an area with fossilized dinosaur tracks! We're pretty sure they are from the theropod dinosaur we have been digging for at this quarry.

Dinosaur track.

Another track. These are about 4-5 inches long, from tip of the middle toe to the heel of the foot.

View up to the dig site. Notice our safety wall.

The tracks are in the rock ledge on the left side of the picture.

The little valley the cliff drops into.

More of the valley.

I mentioned in one of my past posts that the Saints & Sinners quarry is where the sandstone block I've been working on in the lab was pulled from. When I started at this quarry 3 weeks ago, I was already a pro at working on this type of rock and with these fossils. All I had to do was adjust my technique from lab-prepping to field-prepping. I feel right at home at this quarry and is my favorite quarry to work at (so far).

My Mad Map Skillz

2010-06-25T13:50:00.000-07:00

I had this brilliant idea a little bit ago. And decided to act on it. An hour later, this is what I came up with. BEHOLD!!

To get to Moab and the surrounding areas, we traveled through Spanish Fork Canyon. We then headed southeast-ish on highgway 6 and when we got to about Green River, UT, merged onto Highway 70 (Highgway 6 & 70 are the same highway through this area).

Highway 128 is the scenic route to Moab. We would take this road from the Cisgo Quarry if we didn't need to go to the trailers first. We only traveled this road 2-3 times.

Highway 191 is the less scenic route we would take from the trailers. This is also the road to the Dalton Wells Quarry. We traveled this road quite a bit.

The actual Green River, seen in this map, actually runs North to South. We camp right on the river in Dinosaur National Monument. More on that later.

Moab and the Surrounding Areas.
Red square- Moab, UT
Blue square- Thompson Springs, UT - See larger map below.
Yellow square- Exit for Cisco, UT and Cisgo Quarry - See larger map below.
Purple square- General location of Cisgo Quarry - See larger map below.
Orange square- Shark teeth "dig" site
Green square- Dalton Wells Quarry- See larger map below.

Thompson Springs, UT!
Yellow square- Shell Gas Station
Green square- Where I experienced my first flat tire...
Purple square- Trailer Park
Red arrow- to Thompson Wash Petroglyphs

Cisgo Quarry!
Pink line- the dirt road we drove on.
Pink square- general location of Cisgo quarry

Dalton Wells Quarry!
Blue line- road to the quarry
Blue box- general area of the quarry. You can even see the winding road up the side of the mountain.

Dalton Wells Findings

2010-06-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

The biggest bone I have ever found. It's from a sauropod, possibly a limb bone or scapula. This is only about half of it. The rest is still buried in the wall.

The rest of the bone. Shortly before I pulled the rest of it out.

Some of the packages ready to be taken to the lab.

The packages from my large sauropod bone.

Dalton Wells Quarry

2010-06-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

Below are some pictures from the Dalton Wells quarry and more from the area surrounding the trailer park in Thompson Springs.

Sunset over the Book Cliffs.

View of the Book Cliffs from our trailers.

Welcome to Thompson Springs, UT! (Yup, this is about it...)

The trailers (the Blue trailer and the 70's trailer), pickup, and Yukon. Thompson Springs, Books Cliffs, and Thompson Wash Petroglyphs behind me.

View of the Shell station and highway from the trailer park.

Close up view of Shell station and highway.

DALTON WELLS QUARRY

The quarry!

Between the two boulders is where we were digging. You can see Jeff's Jeep in the top left corner. This is AFTER we moved most of the boulders out of the way.

Hill near the quarry. This is where we dumped all of the boulders.

The turnoff to the quarry. You can see the dirt road we came in on. The main highway is just past that. Moab is of to the left about 5-10 miles down the highway.

The opposite side of the quarry from where the hill and view of the highway are. We had to drive up the side of this mountain/hill/thingy to get to the quarry. Winding road with pot holes and boulders. We listened to the Indiana Jones theme song coming down it one of the days and I felt like I was riding on the Disneyland ride. If that's any indication as to what the road was like.

The end of the road to the quarry. The least treacherous part.

May and the Beginning of June

2010-06-25T12:13:00.000-07:00

Oh man, where to start! The week of May 17, we worked at Cisgo quarry. As far as I can remember, nothing exciting happened that week. For one of our evening activities went we on an expedition to find shark teeth. The teeth I found were small, only about the size of the ants that pulled them out of their ant hills. We spent about an hour there picking through the ant hill tailings and pulling out shark teeth. It was amazing to me being able to see the detail on some of the teeth. Razor sharp edges on something that small?? (The shark teeth are imbedded in the rock that the ants are digging their hills in. This area was once covered in water and sharks lived in said water. Since sharks are made of cartilage, the only part of them that is preserved is their teeth. As the ants dig, they find a tooth and carry it to the surface and it is left in the pile with the other small rock fragments they pull out of the ground.)

Shark tooth.

One of the more intricate ant hills in the area.

I was amazed at how pretty some things are in the desert. These flowers were EVERYWHERE and came in a couple of different colors! So pretty!

Life wrapped up at the Cisgo quarry at the end of May. My sister was in town the week of May 24, so I wasn’t able to work in the field that week. That was supposed to be our last week in Moab, but Dr. Britt and Dr. Scheetz wanted us to work at the Dalton Wells quarry for a week and then move locations. The team moved all the dig supplies to Dalton Wells, and from what I hear, it was a pretty exciting week. There was a ledge above the dig site that had to be knocked down for safety reasons before they could start working. The ledge was primarily large boulder and they spent some time using the Yukon and a steel cable to tow the large boulders out of the way and down the hill.

In the process, the steel cable snapped, whipped back and shattered the back window of the Yukon! No one was hurt, but it was the beginning of a month full of car troubles. Over the next few weeks, we had 4 flat tires, 2 broken windows, 1 broken axel, 1 broken gas tank, and 1 axel that leaked axel grease. The Yukon has been in the shop for over 2 weeks and we finally got it back this last week. I’ve had the opportunity to drive “Supertruck” the past couple weeks… What an experience! I’ll post a picture of it soon…. Thankfully, we can take the Yukon out again starting this next week. *Hopefully* we won’t have any more problems with it…

The week of May 31, we worked at Dalton Wells. The idea was that we would work our butts off that week trying to find as many iguanodon bones as we could. We got there on Tuesday morning/afternoon and spent the next 2 days clearing the site of large boulders using the winch on the pickup truck. (Did I mention we almost killed the winch, too?) We actually worked on finding bones for about a day that week. And found NO iguanodon bones…

I personally hated working at Dalton Wells. Cisgo was tolerable, but I will be happy if I never have to work at Dalton Wells again. The gnats were horrible and we were all severely bug bitten by the end of the week.

That week, we went to dinner at Zax Restaurant and Watering Hole in Moab to celebrate 2 of my co-workers’ birthdays. Good food, good company, and good fun!

Since I Have a Second...

2010-06-10T21:25:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to post a quick note to let you all know I haven't been eaten by dinosaurs and I'm still alive. I got home from my fourth week in the field a few hours ago and I'll be posting an update on that soon, but for now, just a little link and a tidbit of new information. MSN is such a great site for the latest news. I saw a T-Rex on my homepage and went "YESSSS!! Dinosaurs!" haha.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37596519/ns/technology_and_science-science/?GT1=43001

It's nothing too exciting, but since I have dinosaurs on the brain on a regular basis lately, thought it would be fun to share.

The tidbit of new information is: The bones I have been working on in the lab lately (small white bones, yellow sandstone) is a type of dinosaur similar to Coelophysis (see-lo-fi-sis) (my own pronunciation thankyouverymuch...) which was mentioned in this article. We're hoping that it is a new species of dinosaur, but we are still not sure. The Paleo team started at a new quarry this week and it is the quarry these sandstone blocks were pulled from. We're slowing recovering information...

Coelophysis is a small theropod (two-legged, primarily carnivorous) dinosaur that stood approximately 2-3 feet tall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelophysis

(I love Wikipedia.) :O)

This is the illustration of Coelophysis that has been floating around the lab for a while now. Pretty neat stuff!!

Dig Week 1

2010-05-14T14:42:00.001-07:00

An update and pictures, as promised! I left early Monday morning with 4 of my co-workers and headed down to the Moab area in south-eastern Utah. The country down there is absolutely phenominal. Arches National Park is located right next to Moab. We didn't explore Arches, but did travel along the Colorado River through the red sandstone canyon carved by the river on our way to Moab Monday afternoon. After driving the three hours to the Moab (getting pulled over and getting my first speeding ticket along the way. oops...) we worked for a couple of hours in the quarry (Cisgo Quarry located near Cisco, Utah, a little non-existent town with no services) and drove into Moab afterwards to run a couple of errands. We then went to the trailers, had dinner, and played games. (The Paleontology team owns a couple of camper trailers that we stayed in this week at a trailer park in Thompson Springs, UT. Another small town that at least had a Shell station...) Tuesday morning we got up at 6:30, ate breakfast, and headed to the quarry around 7:00. We dug in the dirt and rocks until 4:30 with a lunch break in the middle. Tuesday night, we went into Moab again and saw Iron Man 2 at the little 3-screen theater there. Wednesday was about the same as Tuesday. Wednesday night, we made burgers (Juicy Lucy's or Floozy burgers Cody called them... so good...) and a few of us headed up the canyon in Thompson Springs to check out some petroglyphs. Back at the trailer, we played more games and headed to bed. Thursday we worked for about 4 and a half hours, cleaned up the trailers, and headed back to Provo. We worked a 4-10 schedule this week which made it nice that we could come home Thursday instead of Friday.

One of the views we passed as we traveled along the Colorado River on our way to Moab.

Our view from the trailers. To the right of the mountain-esk thing is the entrance to the canyon where the petroglyphs are.

More view from the trailers.

View of the little valley where the quarry is. The quarry site is on the right side of the picture. If you enlarge the picture, you can see Jeff standing at the site.

Looking up the hill from where the cars are parked. If you enlarge the picture, the orange hose marks where the site is.

Looking down on the cars.

The dig site! Jeff (green jacket) is the guy that works for BYU, but stays full time in Moab. Brayden is in the brown hat. Andrew is sitting on the ground with the white hat. Josie is standing in the blue jacket and Cody is behind her.

My little work corner. We used whisk brooms, large paint brushes, hammers, screwdrivers (as chisels), and zip guns (small sized jack-hammers).

We found a lot of cool stuff this week. I contributed to the findings with a few bone fragments, a small femur head (the first femur head found at that site), and a 6 inch long rib fragment.

The femur head. It is about an inch and a half long.

Femur head nestled in its cast.

Juicy Lucy's/Floozy burgers. They're made out of two meat patties with cheese cooked in the middle. These ones were probably about 3/4 lb. each.

Native American petroglyphs in the canyon at Thompson Springs. I think these ones were 4,000 years old.

Close-up of the alien man petroglyph.

More petroglyphs from a later time period.

More of the canyon wall the petroglyphs were drawn on.

I'll be heading out again on Monday for another week at this site. It was a way fun week. I can't decide if I like field work or not (not showering for four days was a little disturbing for me...), but it is definitely worth it. It's a new experience and I learn a lot from it. It'll be interesting to see what we find this next week!

All in a Week's Work

2010-05-08T18:48:00.000-07:00

I've been out of school for over two weeks now and have been working full time for a week now. We've basically finished up with the Abydosaurus project and Dr. Britt had me start on a new project recently. I've been working on a block of sandstone that has a bunch of bones from a small theropod dinosaur. I'm not exactly sure where this quarry is located, but I will have the chance to work there in the field later this summer. Below are some pictures of what I've been working on this week:

This was taken after 4 and a half hours of work Monday afternoon. The sandstone is a tan color and the bones are all white with small black speckles.

This is my pile of dust on the floor after only 4 and a half hours of work... The broom on the left is a standard shop hand broom. My piles of dust and sand have gotten bigger everyday.

This is a rib that I found that is almost 6 inches long. Below that is a part of a dorsal (I think...) vertebra.

This was taken Friday after work. I got quite a bit done in four days...

These are the bones I've pulled out of the block. They have all been numbered and are ready for a little more detail work and research. I've found mostly pieces of ribs, teeth, a claw, a toe bone, and veterbrae.

The guy who worked on this project before me found this vertebra before he left for the summer. I uncovered the rest of it and did detail work on it before pulling it off the block. It's about an inch and a half long.

It's been fun working on something new this week. As usual, there's a lot of time for me to listen to music and think while I'm working, but Dr. Britt has given me some chances to run some errands this week, too, which provides a nice break from working in the lab. He had me run up to the North American Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point (Lehi) on Thursday to pick up a couple of large femur fragments that he was borrowing and then return them on Friday. I've been to this museum a couple of times with my family and it was cool to be able to go "behind the scenes", if you will, and see the lab at this museum.

I leave Monday for my first week in the field!! We're currently working in Moab at the Cisgo quarry and I'm excited to be able to experience this for the first time. I was a little worried at first because there was a high chance that I wouldn't be able to shower all week (eesh...), but I luck out. There are so few of us going down each week that we are able to use our camping trailers and they have showers in them! YIPPEE!!!

As always, I am grateful for the opportunities and experiences I face everyday. This summer has been a little bittersweet so far, but it's going to be a summer filled with once-in-a-lifetime opportunities! Stay tuned for more of my adventures!

Did I mention my TV interview...?

2010-02-25T19:06:00.000-08:00

Fox 13 news interviewed me on Tuesday afternoon about Abydosaurus. Pretty fun stuff!! :)

http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-new-species-dinosaur-found-utah-rock,0,5791767.story

Introducing: Abydosaurus mcintoshi!!!

2010-02-23T22:05:00.000-08:00

Work has been very interesting over the past week or so, to say the least. My boss, Dr. Britt, and some of his co-workers published a paper on a new species of dinosaur yesterday. This species is Abydosaurus mcintoshi and happens to be the dinosaur I have been prepping the bones for over the last six months! I have had the opportunity over the past couple weeks to participate in a few photoshoots and interviews concerning this new discovery! It has been an awesome experience for me and I feel like a celebrity! Below are a few links to some of the press coverage from today. The first was on the BYU homepage and includes links to the major press companies that covered this story. The Deseret News link is fun especially because I am pictured in one of the photos posted with the story!! There is also a short video on the first link explaining a little about the discovery along with link.

http://news.byu.edu/archive10-feb-abydosaurus.aspx

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700011523/Dinosaur-skull-found-in-Utah-a-rare-find.html

It's been a new experience for me and has been fun being able to have a chance to be in the "limelight". I was not involved in digging out the bones of this new species but it's cool to know that I am one of a handfull of people that worked on this new discovery and brought it to life.

Whoa.

2010-02-10T17:51:00.001-08:00

So I got this email this morning from the BYU Media Relations Manager. "Kimmy, Professor Britt mentioned that you prepare bones from the newly discovered Abydosaurus down at the museum. Would you mind commenting for a news story about the discovery?" YIKES. Anywho, once my "commentary" is published and I become **EXTREMELY** famous on BYU campus, I will post a link here. Stay tuned. :O)

This is what I do. Everyday.

2010-02-01T17:06:00.000-08:00

My parents came to Utah for this past Thanksgiving and I took them to the Museum of Paleontology to see where I work. I know, I'm a little behind. School will do that to you. Here's a few pictures of some of the bones I have worked on since I started working there last September. I have really enjoyed working at the Museum and am excited for the adventures that await me this summer. As mentioned in my personal blog, I will have the opportunity this summer to work with the BYU Paleontology team and to go out on dinosaur digs! Basically, what it entails, (my *extremely* educated description...) is I get to camp in a tent for a week at a time, digging in the dirt and drilling rocks looking for bones. I'm stoked. :O) Check back periodically for new posts of my adventures later this summer!

Me with the first dinosaur bone I ever worked on.

Close-up of said bone.

Collections. Basically it's just a bunch of these sturdy orange shelves that we store bones on for years at a time. Literally...

Dinosaur toe bones. Each one was bigger than my hand and weigh probably 2-3 pounds each.

The biggest bone I have worked on so far. *Fondly* named Legion. 'For we are many.' Also one of the most annoying bones I have worked on this year... partially because we ran out of glue at the end of October...

Diamonds are a girl's best friend...

2009-10-28T19:41:00.000-07:00

No I didn't name it (even though this is probably what I would have named it had I actually had the chance to...), but it caught my attention in class last week some time. Kimberlite is a volcanic rock that diamonds are most commonly found in. Named after the town of Kimberley (spelled weird... haha) in South Africa where an 83.5 carat diamond was discovered in 1871.

As my roommate said today, you can "wiki wiki" it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberlite

Work Today

2009-10-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

At work this morning, I gave my very first "tour" to a group of 5th graders. It was a ways fun experience! I pretty much just talked to them for about 10 minutes about the differences between carnivores and herbivores and had them compare their shoulder blade with a shoulder blade that we have on display from a Brachiosaurus that's taller than me (about 8 feet tall when stood on end). We also have a replica of a Giant Ground Sloth displayed at the museum and I had some comments about it so I compared it to Sid the Sloth from the Ice Age movies. After I let them go to wander around the museum, a couple wandered up and asked "Where's Sid again??" or "Sid is HUGE!!" So much fun!

This has been a fairly big week at work. This weekend is our big Grand Opening of the BYU Museum of Paleontology. There's going to be a bunch of donors attending and we've been cleaning like CRAZY! We will also be unveiling the skull of a triceratops this weekend so come check it out if you have a chance. It's huge and REALLY COOL!! Dr. Britt sent me on a couple errands today also so it was nice to have a chance to run around town in a car (GMC truck...) for once. I've really enjoyed working at the Museum and I can't wait to see what the future brings!! Come by and visit any time you're in town or in the area!! :O)

Mercury Messenger

2009-10-15T20:48:00.001-07:00

My Geology 111 professor informed us about this event a couple weeks ago. Apparently there is a spacecraft in the process of trying to get into Mercury's orbit. It made a fly-by on September 29, 30, and October 1 of this year. The spacecraft was able to take some photos of parts of Mercury that have never been seen before. NASA posted these pictures on their website. There is a link below. The Mercury Messenger is scheduled to be in orbit of Mercury sometime over the next couple years. Enjoy!!

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/index.html

I know famous people...

2009-10-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

I was just looking at the BYU website and noticed in the news feed that an article quoting my boss at work was posted there. It is a link to a newspaper article from the New York Times Newspaper on October 13, 2009.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/13/us/AP-US-Trampled-Dinosaurs.html

http://byunews.byu.edu/archive09-Oct-dinobones.aspx

Above are two links for the article. The BYU link has some additional pictures and the top picture is of my boss, Dr. Brooks Britt sitting in the Paleontology Museum. I work with Dr. Britt and Dr. Rod Scheetz, also quoted in the article, on a daily basis at work. I am way excited that this article was published! It's cool reading about people that you know and work with.

For more information on the Paleontology Museum, visit:
http://cpms.byu.edu/ESM/index.html

Beginning of School & a New Job

2009-09-26T13:08:00.000-07:00

I started a new semester of school just under a month ago and with that came a new job for me! I am currently working in the fossil prep room at the BYU Paleontology Museum (formerly the Earth Science Museum) here on campus. This is a picture of the first fossil I worked on. We use metal scribes (picutres on last blog post) to remove dirt and rock from the surface of the fossilized bone. Pictured also are my bottles of acetone, water, and superglue. The spray bottle is superglue accelerant, which helps make the gluing process go faster. Almost everyday I succeed in supergluing my fingers either together, or to the bone piece I am working on. Fun times. I also use a variety of dental picks, toothbrushes, and wire brushes on a daily basis.

The pieces of right half of the bone have been glued together already, the ones on the left are just being held close together by the plaster casing. The ends of this particular bone had rotted out before fossilization so it was incomplete. I got this bone glue together and then moved onto a new bone which I have been working on for two weeks now, gluing it and cleaning it up.

I am really enjoying my job so far! It has been really fun and I've been learning a lot! I am also enjoying my first couple of Geology classes I am taking. The main one is a Geology Principles class and we've been learning about and how to identify different kinds of rocks (igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic). We've also been learning about minerals and plate tectonics. It's been a super fun class and I am really excited to start taking more in-depth classes!

I am so grateful that I decided to switch my major. It has made me excited to learn and has made me WANT to learn more. I am starting to decide what kinds of jobs I would like to have in the future and what other doors will open for me once I get through school because I made this change. It's a blast!

My First Big Adventure

2009-09-26T12:40:00.001-07:00

Last April, my parents, sister, and I went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point in Utah. Jessi and I purchased over very own excavation kits. My was a Wooly Mammoth. It was fun being able to work with a "fossil" and get an idea of what it's like to find bones and dig them up. The real thing is just as fun. :)

The finished product.

Below are a few pictures that were taken that day at the museum...

Raptor!!!!

Typical occurances at a dinosaur museum...

Jessi getting head-butted...

Me getting chased around...

The next two are Jessi and me doing some work on real fossilized fish. The tools we are using are called metal scribes. At my current job, we use these a lot. (More on that later.)

Coprolite Happens...

2009-03-20T18:30:00.000-07:00

I'm going to get the worst of it out of the way first. Just to warn you. :)

I was just flipping through some articles on the National Geographic website and came across this article. My current Geology comic, "Coprolite Happens.", led me to read through this article. For those of you who don't know, coprolite is fossilized animal feces. According to this article, they are one of the most rare types of fossils in the world, right up there with fossilized dinosaur tracks, cololites (digested food in the intestines when the animals died) and fossilized vomit (named regurgitalites... I didn't know they'd found fossilized vomit or that it was even possible! But if they have a name for it, they must have!). A lot can be learned from coprolites about the unknown animals' diet and environment that it lived in. The article says: "Items found in dinosaur and other ancient animal coprolites include fossilized bone, teeth, fur, plant stems, seeds, pollen, wood chips, fungus, insects, larvae, dung beetle burrows, fish scales, shells, and glassy marine organism microfossils 30 to 50 microns (one to two thousandths of an inch) in size, among others." The article also talks a lot about the question behind coprolites: Who produced it? In most cases, paleontologists don't know. One paleontologist remarked, "Let's put it this way. It's easier to find out what the animal ate then who took the dump."

The above picture is of a regurgitalite. I'll spare you a picture of a coprolite.

Intriguing, isn't it??

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/03/0312_030312_dinodung.html

The Beginnings...

2009-03-20T17:12:00.001-07:00

I recently changed my major at BYU to Geology with an emphasis in Vertebrate Paleontology and I am SO EXCITED!!! I can't wait to start learning more about the world we live on and learn more about its past and future! As I learn more, read more, explore more, I'll post my findings and keep you posted on what I'm up to in the world of Geology! I also recently subscribed to the National Geographic magazine so I'll post interesting Geology-related things from there on this blog as well.