(Mis)adventures in Paleontology.

[Morm]

Okay, sorry for delays for those of you that read this thread. I just got back, was deployed again and just got back again from a cancelled trip. I leave tomorrow for two trips spanning 8 days!! It's busy season, I've been on my computer twice in the last two weeks (both times to come on here and say hello).

I have some killer pictures awaiting you guys. I'm in the middle of a vista related computer meltdown, so I have to transfer files and scrub this beast when I get a chance...which will be who knows when. At the very least I'll have the weekend of the 27th off for sure.

By the way, these next few jobs it's not unreasonable to hope for a T.rex.

 

[Morm]

Hey guys. I'm back. In the hopes that my long absences in the field haven't made you forget about me or this thread, I present you with a story (all true, of course, from this last trip!!). Let me know if you guys still wanna hear about my job.

This story is called "A small trickle of bone".


So fucking hot. That's all I can say. Is so fucking hot. 44 Celcius is what the valley reached in the height of the day on the bedrock, there in Alberta's famous badlands. 44 miserable fucking degrees. That's hot enough to kill, by the way.

An adventure where we ran into four rattlesnakes (angry ones too) in less than 1 minute, scorpions and extreme heat, one where we ran into the hand of an Albertosaurus and various crocodile jaws, stingray remains and even shark teeth, is highlighted by the simple most commonplace trickle of weathered bone down the coulee wall.

Literally our first day out on the job, I had already found and identified a microvertebrate site. Along we marched, checking every crack and crevasse within reason for the remains we coveted this trip: Dinosaur. Well, I should say, most people would covet them. I certainly do not.

After a long and hard day, one that later took 12 hours to complete, I was doing my typical antics: climbing sheer cliffs, jumping over sinkholes and of course, avoiding the cactus. Yes, we have cactus in Canada. Many, many bone fragments were found. Infact, you have to be completely thick NOT to find such remains in these badlands.

So when I was climbing, of course, and came across a slow trickle of bone, it was my duty to follow it to its source. I thought nothing of it. A limb bone fragment here, blah blah ossified tendon there. I zigzagged in a switchback fashion up the now breaking slope (to a much gentler ~45 degree sloped area). Yawn, just another day at the office so far. I found a crushed vertebra a while back in the furthest catchment downslope. Not a big deal, we find vertebrae fairly regularily. Wait a minute though...this bone is getting denser and in larger fragments. It's also less weathered! I must be getting close to the source layer. It'll probably be something so badly weathered I can't ID it. YAWN.

All of a sudden, I realized...Some of this bone, no, a fair portion of this bone has a strange texture. Better investigate. Before that thought was complete, I found another veretbra, meaning I had now found two in relatively close quarters. Soon I realized the odd bone, probable forelimb fragments and the identifiable vertebrae were coming from the same regional area, 8m away from the bulk of the ossified tendon. Later, a toe bone was even found (Called an ungual for those that care)!

I ran up to my boss, knowing I had something. Something more substantial than I have ever found before. Something...complete. Yes, I found a 70 million year old skeleton, 8m long. This can only be one thing: A dinosaur. A Dinosaur skeleton. Using a combination of the vertebrae, a known faunal listing for the time I was working in and the mental power of thinking I identified the beast in question. To my dismay, the final nail in the coffin for the ID was right in front of my face the whole time: the strange bone. Luckily, my boss identified it.



End Part 1.

I'll give you some hints as to the identity of the dinosaur:
-it's 70 million years old
-it's a saurischian
-it's a relative of probably one of the 5 most popular dinosaurs

 

[Lee]

I have no idea but I won't be able to sleep until I know. I just can't begin to imagine how it would feel to stumble upon a 70 million year old skeleton. It's just mind-blowing.

Next part please!

 

[Morm]

I promised some pics...but these are all I have at the moment.

I found this slab loaded with fossils in this here creek. Note that I'm not actually that creepy looking in real life but feel free to muse about my creepyness amongst yourselves anyways

uhhh your run of the mill office prank really. I did make that mask out of a burlap sack and I am wearing a dinosaur shirt I bought off the internet though

We were hot since it was 44 fucking degrees this day and the day before. So we went to the river to cool down. I'm pretty excited for some reason and my hair is pretty fucking cool here so I thought you should see. You can see the badlands in the background so you can see the terrain I sometimes work in (you know, other than thick as fuck boreal forest)

As you can see I sometimes squeeze some time for fun in this job

 

[Chill Murray]

Your job sounds fucking amazing.

Would it be an Albertosaurus, by any chance?

 

[the Lexx]

Can't believe I didn't notice this thread until now, awesome stuff.

 

[Morm]

ahhh fuck did I say saurischian? I meant to say ornithischian. That's what I get for writing up a story with my girlfriend breathing down my neck wanting attention or something. It's pretty selfish of her to knock me off my A-game like that, how embarassing.

We did infact find an Albertosaurus hand though...



Here's another hint for you, since I'm such a retard, it kind of looks like this fellow but is older:

for the record I do infact mean the dinosaur and not the guy when I say "this fellow"

 

[Chill Murray]

Wikipedia leads me to believe that it might have been an Eotriceratops, based on your description.

By the way, thanks for giving me an excuse to do the most research on dinosaurs I've done since the second grade. =D

 

[Murkrow]

Some kind of large mustelid from what I can tell (probably a wolverine or badger)

These actually look like raccoon tracks for me. I see coon tracks a lot where I live, and they always look like "little hands" as these do. The raccoon has a plantigrade foot, but it doesn't always push the heel down, but anyway the long fingers screams coon track to me. I've never seen a wolverine before, but I know badgers have really long claws that make a mark quite a ways ahead of the digit. I'm guessing you have raccoons in Alberta?

Anyway, cool thread. I wanted to be a vertebrate zoologist once, but then I thought I liked it better as a hobby than as a job. But the pics and the adventures surely make me feel jealous that I spend days in a lab with pipettes and test tubes...

 

[Morm]

raccoons don't really live in Northern Alberta...or in Alberta in general. Also no to the Eotriceratops, which I'm not even sure is a legitimate genera. Close though, same subfamily at least.

 

[Big Bayou]

Reading your accounts is getting me pretty pumped up as I'll be spending time at an archaeological dig site in Cyprus this summer, and if digging up old cities is as fun as digging up old monsters looks then I'm probably going to have a ball.

Yeah dirt!!

 

[Morm]

Bayou: I've done arky before. I hate the people and techniques they use up here, but I would LOVE to dig up medieval or especially crusades aged sites. That would be rockin' as hell.

You're gonna have a great time, are you in school to become an archaeologist?

 

[Morm]

okay so part two of the story is this:


IT'S A CENTROSAURUS (probably). Maybe a Styrakosaurus or most unlikely a pachyrhinosaurus. The weird bone was the frill, which is heavily veinated and kinda cool looking. Man, looking back I really shoulda jazzed up the ending a bit.

here's pics for you to see what I mean though:

This one is Centrosaurus you can see that this was obviously a drawing from someone of considerable talent and education. Note that they didn't appear to fuck up on the quintessential part, the large horn sticking up over the nose. Note also that they fucked up most everything else except the part about the beak.

Pachyrhinosaurus. This woman is very very lucky that it's just a mural, cause that Pachyrhinosaurus looks like it's about to show her who is boss...using his nasal boss. Look up what a nasal boss is and you'll get the joke. Also this gem is the only one to get a horn coming out of the middle of the frill on the parietal. Some people think that a giant horn made of keratin came up from where the boss is but I think those people are about as smart as the person who drew the Centrosaurus picture

So here is Styrakosaurus. Don't let that lousy centrosaur drawing fool you, Styrakosaurus is really the king of having the epiparietals and episquamosals turn into frill horns. I honestly tried to find a more menacing picture for you to jazz up this thread but it looks like I failed.


Okay I'm going into the field again in this same area for a few days. I'll let you guys know what comes up, apparently we're going very close to a known rattlensake hibernaculum and rookery (yeah I contested calling it a rookery too cause it's a bird term but what can you do?)

 

[DM]

I honestly tried to find a more menacing picture for you to jazz up this thread but it looks like I failed.

I dunno, I definitely wouldn't want to run into that guy in a dark alley.

 

[Morm]

So I found another skeleton today. It's a bovid, or a member of the cow family and it's from Alberta. It's not a bison...it's a COW! I should have a pic or two tomorrow, I had to ID it from the skull etc, almost a full skeleton. Too bad it didn't have horns or it mighta been a Bison. I'm not buying that it's recent based on the stratigraphy but honestly only domesticated members of the bovid family lack horns in the females in North America. If we recall, domesticated cows aren't that long in North America.


It did have a weird thing on it's maxilla, a strange looking orbit and a strange occipital bump as well as sagittal bump on the parietals. Not to mention it doesn't have the usual 'dimple' I'm used to seeing on the parietal suture area near the top of the skull. I guess there's lots of breeds of cow out there though!

 

[Morm]

I have photographic proof of the best thing we've found so far:

That's a freaking maxilla coming out of the hill! I'm excited here because I see that it's a bovid and it might be a bison. Bison is cool...cause it coulda been fairly old.

You can see it's pretty cool and so am I. It's lead into a really really neat experience that most people will never have. You can see here that even if this cow was burried in like 2002 or so when there was huge flooding in Southern Alberta, the preservation is impecable and it was basically articulated but erosion had fixed that problem and it was a little bit all over. Okay, you can't see that in the pictures but just imagine that the animal was buried really fast after death and the bones are in perfect condition.

Today I actually saw a dead pony (with a .22 or so hole in the forehead, rad) skeleton right beside a cow skeleton and THREE rotting cow carcasses. They were mostly bone and some hide still with a real assload of maggot puparia (cocoons basically but they are different trust me). Anyways, aside from seeing articulated cow skeletons with cervical (neck) vertebrae and jaw agape in the classic 'death pose' you see alot of carnivorous dinosaurs in.

Anyways, to the point: the skeletons that had been out no more than since last winter (probably killed like in may or something) had their bones all shitted up and weathered. It REALLY gave me an appreciation for the quickness involved in many fossil burial events, as well as the required preservation. The bones of the one eroding out of the riverbank (shown in pics) had some surfaces already being weathered and it wasn't exposed very long at all (maybe less than a month).

Hope that made sense, any questions? I should be able to score some pics tomorrow or something of the cow skeletons and the kitten that followed us and stood in the ribcage.

 

[tape]

Lol what a letdown, at the skull and all.

Cool update.

 

[Darth Meanie]

You have the most awesome career ever. More stories.

 

[Morm]

Just posting here to say that I poked a porcupine with a stick in the ass today while it was in its burrow. Man this job keeps getting better!

 

[Morm]

I can't sleep. Seriously guys, tomorrow is the night I look forward to more than any night in the year. Oktoberfest. Fuck off, I know it's september.

It's a magical night where the liquor bill is about 1200 dollars of import beer and the food is just...well even our neighbours from germany love it. 60 people fit into a bungalo my parents own, most of them presidents and vice presidents of oil companies. So much fucking money flying around it's scary!! It's okay, I've known most of them since I was small.

Anyways, today my best friend confirmed he is coming. I scored him a job making $800 a day...starting. I turned down that same job as a wellsite geologist for the job I have now making a fraction of that!

My girlfriend, of course, is coming. Sexy as hell, one day soon I'll post a pic of her (probably from the party) and you'll wonder what a girl like that is doing with a greaseball like me. Anyways, also coming is my former and first paleontology professor and his wife. They quite literally changed my life and apparently even named dropped ME at a world famous museum lately. Yes, I was flattered- a former curator at one of the best paleo museums in the world dropped my name and it was met in a very, very favorable way. I don't even have a masters!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHH


Okay sorry, thought I'd mention one of the best nights of my life is coming up. I'll be telling them all kinds of stories of my travels. What's so strange is that probably everyone there will have heard of the company I work for and has probably hired them at some time to do what we do best- be awesome. That's what it seems like we do.

By the way, I do alot of paperwork when I'm in the office. Yeah, it seems like a rarity but thats what winter is for when I'm not on my 3 weeks of paid vacation and 2 weeks of unpain vacation this winter.

Okay, I'll post pics of what I can and whatnot. Maybe a story or two of me making a jackass of myself infront of a legend in my field and some major league potential clients that have known me my whole life...

 

[Morm]

I was on a B4 helicopter today, one made by eurocopters. I think it's called an A-star or some crap like that, I don't know much about helicopters. It was like the cadillac of helicopters though, talk about luxurious. Sadly, no cup holders for my beverages

Yes, I had two beverages.

I found a pic of this bad boy. What a rad helicopter, it was so quiet we could talk inside it with the headsets.

 

[Bam]

Heh, Eurocopters are awesome. There's a custom-built model called the Red Bull Stunt 'Copter, I saw it at an airshow over the summer and it can do some crazy stuff.

Anyways, I love reading this thread. Even though I hardly have an idea of what you're saying some of the times, it's still very interesting and informative. I have to agree with you about the heat you've been experiencing, though; over the summer it's over 44* C for about a month straight, and it sucks.

Anyways, looking forwards to your next post ;).

 

[Bourbon]

I envy your adventures :(

I'll be checking back, this is interesting!

 

[Morm]

Bam: We actually had a former stunt pilot for one job that was so freaking awesome. He landed so close to a river that the skids got wet, right on the unconsolidated gravel bar. He was awesome, he let us ride with the back/side door open all the time.

One time, one of the crew members said he saw something in one of the sink hole lakes we just passed over (we were reasonably high up). Of course, the back/side door was open. So, without a word of warning, the pilot pulls up in a vertical climb. At this point, my pants were filled with what could only be emotion...either that or I had soiled myself. He banked sharply to the left, the side with the open door, and we literally had just our seatbelts keeping us in from a sheer drop of probably 1000+ feet. He levelled out, swooped down and checked the lake- it was a muskrat.

He actually tooled around a clearing to find me a black bear this one time, then threw down a high speed dive into a canyon flyby. It was like the first level of that old game "Rebel Assault" where you fly through Beggar's Canyon.

I love bush pilots.

 

[Morm]

I'm going back to a forest to do some work from October 2nd til 10th.

I'll give updates if they are exciting or anything, but for now here's more pics for you guys since you love them:

despite the upset face, I definately am not upset.

The articulated cow skeletons we found featuring the kitten that climbed around inside them

ummm yeah just more of the kitten playing in the cow. Apparently death excites kittens in the same way it excites me

Feel free to make a sex joke about me being excited about death.

This next one is graphic so don't look at it if you are a female or of the gay:

It's an aged one you can tell from the teeth

Those are fly puparia in its mouth...you know, the cocoon that maggots make out of their last instar skin? Note the classic cervical death pose caused by drying tendons, sexy

Porcupine ass. Not much to see here

This is me poking the porcupine ass with a long piece of grass. Harassing the guard hairs with it so that it would strike with quill power! Note that I am very happy to be allowed to do this by my boss.




It's deer and moose rutting season and bears are too busy eating this time of year to harass me. I'll likely be bear spraying a moose in the face with bear spray this trip.