We arrived on site this morning and the atmosphere was hot
and humid, with thunderheads looming on the horizon. Rain in the badlands is a
problem…but lightening can be life-threatening. We only have a few more days to
finish our site survey and remove a few obvious bones that might not make it
through the harsh Dakotan winter.
Today we had planned to extract a rather stunning bone, but
the lightening storm slowly shifted over us and started to spot the dry dirt
with rain. Usually we would turn tail and head for the field vehicle, but we
took a gamble and hunkered down under a butte. Thankfully the storm passed over
and we could head-off to get plastered. The single tibia that stuck proud of a
channel sand had a stunning surface texture and a possible bite mark from a
large predator. The removal procedure involved plaster, bandages, copious
amounts of water and a bucket. Carl Mehling pointed out that we were reenacting
a scene that has been played-out countless times in the Badlands. The
temperature was rising at our site and Carl whipped-out his multipurpose tool
to open the plaster bag to start the field-jacketing process.
The bone we intended to collect still lay in the wall of the
butte. The prior day we had completely exposed it, and identified it as being a
large tibia from an Edmontosaurus. We had named the specimen Phindy, as both
Jennifer Anne (aka Indy) and I had discovered the bone earlier in the week.
Carl was clearly impressed by Phindy’s huge bone.
We soon got down to business and started encasing the bone
in a field jacket for extraction. I checked that the initial bandage jacket had
dried from the day before. It was nice and hard, so I could get to work on the
bone. We mixed-up a batch of plaster, Carl pouring water into the bucket…as I
poured plaster into the mix. The goopy mix soon started to get hot and I worked
the mixture until it was nice and smooth, indicating it was nearly ready to
smother the bone with. This outer jacket would provide the final protection for
the bone for its long journey from the Badlands of South Dakota to New York
City.
As I smoothed the mix over the shaft of the bone, Carl and
Indy watched and offered ‘helpful’ words of encouragement….that might alter the
rating of this blog so forgive there omission. The goop started getting hot, as
the exothermic mix began to harden around the bone. I had to keep moving the
mixture over the bone, keeping it smooth and even as it hardened.
Tomorrow we will be able to safely remove this awesome bone
from its 65 million year old Hell Creek tomb.
No comments:
Post a Comment