Drew's Blog

 Yesterday one of my co-workers who's a Paleontologist took me mountain climbing through the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, and he showed me some fossilized Dino foot prints that date back to the Jurassic era. Its hard to say with any real certainty what made these foot prints out in the field. However, based on the shapes of said prints, and the list of animals we know lived in this area during that time period, we can make some educated guesses. This first print seems to have been made by an animal with three long pointed toes. Almost like a bird. This indicates that it was made by one of the Theropod Dinosaurs. Theropodes were the two-legged dinosaurs that were generally carnivorous. The two most common in this area were Allosaurs and Ceratosaurs.      This second print seems to have been made by an animal with three short rounded toes. The most likely culprit was Camptosaurus. A medium sized herbivore.       These three final prints seem to have been made by animals that had

 I've been walking around the neighborhoods in both Price and Huntington, and here are a couple of pictures I took that I thought were amusing. The first one is of a marker for a time capsule they have buried out and Price. I guess they plan to open it some time in 2037. The second is of a rabbit I saw sitting just outside the front lawn of one of the Huntington locals.  Behind the fence you see in the picture were several more rabbits, so I'm guessing this person either raises rabbits to sell, or really likes to keep the little critters as pets. Either way this white rabbit was probably one who managed to get by the fence somehow. Not sure how. Didn't see any holes in the fence, nor any places where it looked liked he burrowed underneath the fence, and it looks to tall for the rabbit to have jumped over it as well.

 Today I found a new trail just outside of Price called Wood Hill Trail. Its basically a large flat section of desert covered in patches of grass, and a few pockets of trees. Here are some pictures I took along the way.  My personal favorite was the random deer skull along side the trail. Because its such a cliche thing to see in deserts in movies that it made me feel a little bit like I had walked into a western and Clint Eastwood was going to show up soon.

 Today I got to work along side a couple of paleontologists at Jurassic National Monument's dig site. Apparently there are so many fossils there, and they are so jumbled up together, that it is near impossible to not find a fossil in that are once you start digging. To the point where a Paleontologist might actually complain every time they find a new fossil in the area, because usually, in order to remove one bone from the ground, they first need to remove several others that are piled on top of it. Here are some pictures I took of myself at the dig site. The last two show some fossils that I actually unearthed. The dark spots are fossilized bone, the pale brown is just dirt and rock.

 Today was my first day working as a volunteer for the Prehistoric Museum of Price Utah, which is a part of my internship. I helped begin the process of removing the protective jacket from a fossilized femur of a Camarasaurus (one of the long-necked Sauropod Dinosaurs). Once it has gone through the preparation process, this fossil will be displayed at the Jurassic National Monument. Protective jackets are used to keep a fossil intact when it is being transported from the field to a lab. They're made of burlap and plaster that is so hard it can only be removed with power tools. And the process of removing these jackets throws ups so much dust that protective masks are required. I'll be helping the museum with this and possibly other projects every Monday throughout my internship.

 Walked along the Raptor Peak hiking trail at the monument today. Was not disappointing by the view.

 Today was my first day and I was given a tour of the Jurassic National Monument and the Cleveland Lloyd dinosaur quarry. Here are some of the things I saw.