Dino Camp

As I begin to write this I realize I've never really talked about how I got myself into this Master's program in the first place. So at some point in the not-too-distant-future I'll need to do that.

Last week, beginning on July 6th and ending on July 11th, I took a class entitled "Dinosaur Paleontology of the Hell Creek Formation", here in Montana. Here is my log of what happened on this trip (some events are sure to be glossed over in the name of expediency, humility, self-esteem, and/or good taste, not necessarily in that order.)

On Monday morning we met outside one of the residence halls, where there were many people. I'd met 11 other classmates of mine for this trip the night before, so I was a little taken aback by the 30 or so people waiting for a van. Turns out the department failed to close the registrations for this class, so they got twice as many students as they normally have: OOPSIE!

We all loaded our gear into a pickup and Frankie's (more about Frankie Jackson later) Jackson's (paleontology professor) camper, and clambered into vans for the ride to Glendive. Remember, Montana is a large state; 4th largest in land area, if my sources are correct. So traveling ⅗ of the distance across the state actually means something from a time standpoint. It means you're going to travel about six or seven hours is what it means.

By the time we rolled into Glendive, we knew each others' life stories, we'd swapped photos, a new administration had taken office…a long time had passed. It was time to stop at Albertson's a supermarket chain out here. Thirty people ran through that place, scouring it for trail mix, beer, snacks, wine, beer, teriyaki wings, and more beer. Turns out a six pack of Fat Tire didn't take me far into the week, and it was Thursday before we re-provisioned. Given what I knew about archaeologists, I expected a beer run every day. I guess paleontologists and geologists are more refined…

From there it was a short drive to Makoshika State Park, where we were greeted by precipitous dropoffs on both sides of the road, and road beds that are impassable in rain because of their mineral composition which turns to a soupy mud, known affectionately as "gumbo". I tried to think how to take some of this clay soil home, so I could demonstrate: the closest I can come is Bentonite. If anyone knows a good source for this, please send it my way.

That night after dinner we introduced ourselves to the group--by Friday I knew most of the names--and how we got there. Then we had a couple of mini-lectures by Frankie and Jim Schmitt, the geologist of the teaching pair, on tephonomy and why it is important to know how a fossil ends up where it is. Think CSI: Cretaceous.

On Tuesday I awoke early to try to get some pictures of the area at sunrise. The sun goes down late and comes up early in these parts, so 5:30 didn't get me up in time for the sunrise, but I did get some pictures of the local flora.

After breakfast we went to the A-Frame at the top of the hill, which overlooks a canyon carved by numerous extinct streams carving into the soil. There we had the first lecture of the week, by Jim. He gave us the background of the geologic deposits visible in the canyon, as well as the time frame we were looking at. In a nutshell, the Hell Creek formation lies just below the layer of coal ("Z coal") that marks the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary (the K/T boundary), which happens to be the time period where dinosaurs are thought to have gone extinct. The lecture was very interesting, and the setting was spectacular, but we all wanted to get out in the field.



After lunch, we did just that: half the group went with Jim, to check out sandstone deposits from a geologic standpoint while the other half, including me, went down the Cap Rock Trail, and then off the trail, down past the K/T boundary, to the bottom of a canyon where we all could have died easily if we'd fallen into mud caves, the walls gave way, it started raining, or someone up above us kicked some rocks loose. It was exhilarating.

The trip down was marked by few finds: a marine mollusk, some leaf imprints in ancient marine mudstone, and a crocodile tooth. Pretty cool, but I was shut out and not feeling to good about it. Then some guys up on a rise at the foot of a cliff said they'd found some bone. On my way up to see what they'd found, I looked down and saw something that looked suspiciously like the vertebrae on the skeleton model at my massage therapist's office. I called Frankie over, and she confirmed my find.
Then I looked about five feet to the right and saw the unmistakable curve of a tooth. At that point, I'm certain a profanity escaped my lips, which started with "Holy". Frankie said it was a shed tooth from some sort of theropod. Had it been a full tooth with the root attached, it would have been much longer, and it would be associated with a skull. But apparently, like most animals, theropods shed teeth and re-grew them throughout their lives. This tooth had serrated edges on it, which probably won't show up in the photos. I logged the information, including the GPS coordinates, of this find, collected the specimens, and we began the long hike out of the canyon.

Tuesday night was another lecture, and Wednesday morning the two groups swapped activities. In the afternoon we hiked out to a spot on the access road where there were abundant fossils of marine plants present. This was fine, but most of us wanted to go look for more bones.

On Thursday we had lecture once more, and then in the afternoon we hiked into another trail where the K/T boundary was very apparent. There, Jim debunked the popular Discovery Channel explanation of the dinosaur extinction, and left us with the impression that we really don't know why there was a mass die-off at the K/T boundary. In a nutshell, the index fossils of dinosaurs disappear three meters below the appearance of the iridium layers that many use to explain the mass extinction event at the K/T boundary.

That night most of us were treated to a performance of "Two Gentlemen of Verona", presented by Montana State University's Shakespeare in the Parks troupe. The performance was pretty good, but I was distracted by the scenery at the park's amphitheater. Some of the younger, more adventurous guys ventured into the canyon by the A-Frame and found a few more fossils. My wife and family are probably glad I chose to watch theater.

On Friday we loaded into our vans and headed to the dump. Well, first we visited the Makoshika State Park visitors center to check out the exhibits (really well done!) and to buy schwag. I did my part for the Montanan economy.

The dump: this is where the excitement happened. The City of Glendive has bought a large tract of land so they can expand the landfill at some future time when everyone has given up on Las Vegas and decides to go there instead. Out in the canyons behind the tire dump is where we were set free to employ our skills. For a good while, I saw nothing where it should have been, but I was excited because I found a cool ironstone concretion that I could keep!

After about an hour of looking around, I came across Joel, my classmate who had an eye for fossils. On our initial venture, he found a leaf impression and the crocodile tooth, and I think another bone. This time when I saw him he was uncovering a wide, thin bone that looked like a scapula. I offered to help him clean it out, and as I was doing that, I looked about four feet off to the right, where I saw a pinkish-looking piece of stone peeking out from beneath a sage. The piece I saw was about three inches tall and two inches across, rounded, with a darker, rougher center and a smoother, lighter edge. The same profanity escaped my lips as when I saw the tooth, and all of a sudden I was digging it out.

Before long, the piece was larger than one of my fists, and it showed no signs of being done. We called for Jim to see if it was anything important, though we knew the answer before we asked.

The rule was that we should only take bones that were diagnostic (either being complete, or being in a place or situation that would give evidence to how it got there).

When Jim showed up, he thought it looked like a vertebra with the processes broken off. I thought it looked like one of the ends of a long bone.


Long story short, the group became more excited as time wore on, and we realized there was quite a bit of bone there. About three inches from the big piece we unearthed, there was a jagged end that was obviously broken off, with dark, crystalline stone inside. There were numerous bone fragments scattered underneath where it broke off, and we kept looking for more bone. We weren't disappointed, as up from the break and to the left was the associated broken end. We kept digging, and unearthed what ended up as a 4-5 foot long bone with two complete ends. It was definitely diagnostic, but we didn't have the time or ability to extract it, and if we tried to carry it out it would be destroyed by the journey. The heartbreaking decision was made that we would have to re-bury it, and keep the coordinates for someone else to come dig it out.

I was on a high from having found it, but hugely disappointed that someone else would return to finish the job. That disappointment didn't last long however, once we returned to camp and talked to Frankie. First of all, from the pictures we showed her, she thought it was the tibia of a theropod (could very well have been a T Rex). Better yet, she told me it is likely a local teacher in Glendive who is a graduate of the MSSE program will take his classes out there to unearth the bone and go through the process of removal. Nothing could have raised my spirits any higher than that: any time kids can learn from what I've begun, I am happy.

We did an inquiry activity that night, and then the mood was festive due to it being the last night of Dino Camp, and the beer stop right after the Glendive Dump. There were five of us who were finished with their MSSE program at the completion of that activity, so we were very happy.

Later that night, we watched the moon come up from the deck where we'd had our first lectures. There were a few people left on the deck when I excused myself and headed back down the hill to bed. The next morning we packed up and were on the road by 8:30 and were back in Bozeman by 3:30.

I hope this post has done justice to the great experience of Dino Camp. I couldn't recommend it more highly.