Plastering the Big Jacket

Well…it’s the end of the road for the 2010 Hanksville-Burpee Quarry fieldseason.  The remaining work…which is a lot and a little bit of misery; includes putting the quarry to bed and removing the last of our plaster jackets.  Over a breakneck week a few of us DIE-HARDS stuck it out in 90-100 temperatures to get everything ready.  One of the more exciting specimens was the articulated caudal (tail) section to a Barosaurus.  Barosaurus is a type of sauropods (long necked dino) that is related to Apatosaurus and Diplodocus.  The block was trenched, plastered, reinforced with 2 X 4s, trenched more, plastered more ….well you get the idea.  Many 9-10 hour days were spent getting the whole site ready.  We even had some reinforcements; Cory Schabacker (an old school friend of mine and Burpee Member) and Brad Brown (who cut his teeth at the homer site).  Without them we could not have wrapped it up as we (me, Mindy and Katie) were all walking wounded, sporting back backs, hips and fatigue. 

Flipping the Big Jacket

Then the final day came when Curtis Whipple (Hanksville Mayor) repeated his role from last year and came to the site with his forklift.  After a little situating the forks and straps….the 1000 lbs block rolled like a charm.  TEXTBOOK……if I do say so myself.  The other side was plastered and reinforced.  All the plastered bones were hauled out for storage and we can close the book on the 2010 Hanksville-Burpee Quarry season.  Now….its 10 days off and onto Montana to collect more Triceratops, Tyrannosaurs and Cretaceous Crocodiles..oh my!!….now where is my ibuprofen??

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