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By Scott Williams, June 4, 2010 11:47 am

Mel Jackovich with tail vertebrae

Another great day, several articulated bones were found.  Burpee Volunteer Mel Jackovich found 7 articulated tail vertebra for a possible Apatosaurus.  Finding articulated material is always so cool.  It shows that although these carcasses were transported they weren’t transported very far before they were buried.  

 Also, articulated bones are just neat to see.  In addition to the articulated material we have a complete set of hips for our big Barosaurus, two new femora (upper leg bones) and I think Paul Vaitkus has some other articulated material.  

Nancy & Bob Moore

 Another great day with and endless supply of late Jurassic dinosaur bones waiting for us tomorrow.

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By Scott Williams, June 4, 2010 11:44 am

Normally, I would post about how awesome this quarry is and how we keep finding bone after bone after bone.  Of course it would be true.  However this time I really have something to crow about.  We have found and collected part of a sauropod skull.  One of the WIU students, Megan Luczak uncovered a strange bone.  

Scott Williams works on dentary

 In a short time I was able to prep off one surface and determine it was a Camarasaurus dentary (jaw) and part of the braincse.  This was exceptionally exciting as sauropod skulls are pretty rare.  They had huge bodies and relatively small skulls.  Hopefully we can find more of this skull in the near future.

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By Scott Williams, June 4, 2010 11:42 am

One of the most important factors when it comes to a large scale paleontological dig is to have good support from the surrounding community.  Over the last few summers Burpee has been blessed with wonderful hosts in the townspeople of Hanksville.  A few notables who have given their time and support to us include Mayor Curtis Whipple, Don and Connie Pfoutz,  the whole crew a Blondies Restaurant and of course Sue Fivecoat and Buzz Rakow at the local BLM.  It seems like everyone is behing making the Hanksville-Burpee a success.  In fact, one young man decided to make protecting the Hanksville-Burpee Quarry the focus of his Eagle Scout Project.  18 year old, Jake Finkelstein’s project was ambitious and much needed.  Jake planed, supervised and help build a 450 foot fence with two metal gates one the south entrance to the quarry.   This fence is made of sturdy pine posts driven 3 feet down into solid sandstone.  In addition Jake built a kiosk so that information about the quarry can be posted for visitors when we are not around.  This new construction gives the site a more “permanent” and professional feel.  It will also make it harder for people to drive vehicles up onto the site and will help deter any bone poaching.  Now that tours have started up we have had many compliments.  Good Job Jake!

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By Scott Williams, May 31, 2010 10:15 pm

Tuesday; work continued in earnest at the Hanksville-Burpee Quarry.  Several new bones were found in a short time before we were chased out by a late spring thunderstorm.  Fortunately we made it out of the field before our vehicle got mired in the mud.

Double Arch

With time to spare, we decided to visit one of the best attractions in Utah, Arches National Park.  The park sits at the bottom of the LaSal Moutain Range and I must admit this has become one of my favorite parks right behind Yellowstone.  Several formations are present in the park, but two are the most prominent; Navajo and Entrada.  Most of the arches form from the weathering of the Entrada sandstones. If you ever get to Moab you need to visit.  Despite the rain, we were productive and saw what Utah has to offer.

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By Scott Williams, May 27, 2010 5:23 pm

Foggy Rockies

Well another field season is upon the Burpee Museum.  On Thursday,  May 13th, Josh Mathews and I left Northern Illinois, destination; The Hanksville-Burpee Dinosaur Quarry in Hanksville, Utah.  In case you missed it, in 2008 Burpee discovered one of the largest dinosaur bonebeds found in North American within the last thiry years.  This monstrous bonebed extends for nearly one quarter mile and is three hundred feet wide.  So far we have begun exacavating several well known late Jurassic dinosaurs like, Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Camarasaurus and possibly Allosaurus.  In fact, since 2008 Burpee has excavated over 12,000 lbs of dinosaur bones.  

  This year we did not drive to Utah directly, instead we took a detour to Woodland Park to visit the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center.   We met with owner/Director Michael Triebold to place an order.  We ordered a mounted cast of the “bone-headed” dinosaur, Pachycephalosaurus. 

This cast will end up being part of the Homer Triceratops exhibit we plan to open in May, 2012.  This was exciting for me as I had the luck to collect a pachy skull dome back in 2001!  After a productive day of researching some of their new tyrannosaurid specimens and marvelling over the mounted 45 foot long Tylosaurus named “Bunker” we headed out.  ONTO UTAH!!

Driving to Utah is always a wonderful because you get to go through the Rocky Mountains.  This year mother nature rewarded us with snow and wildlife.  At about 10,000 feet we drove through a small blizzard.  Of course, Josh and I had to stop and like any good tourists got lots of pictures. 

Big Horn Herd

Baby Bighorn

It was amazing!  We ended up stopping (or should I saw swerving off the road in a semi-uncontrolled manner) because I spotted a heard of Big Horn Sheep about 20 feet from I-70!!  We got some excellent pictures of a “gang” of young males and then we spotted a baby Big Horn….awww.  It was ridiculously cute….so more picture taking.   After adding a few hours of picturing taking we resumed our trip to Utah.

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By Marian "Mirm" Michaelis, April 30, 2010 10:14 am

Utah's Goblin Valley State Park

Session #1 Starts in Hanksville UT on May 24th. Burpee’s educators will travel to Utah in time to give tours of the dig site Memorial Day weekend.

Visit www.burpee.org/education/expeditions to read more about how to join the crew in Utah or Montana this summer.

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By Scott Williams, June 20, 2009 5:14 pm

Old Stick of Dynamite

Its been busy, busy, busy,…so busy I have had trouble getting to my blogs.  The last week of our Jurassic Journey program ended with a bang…..literally.  Another week of finding new bones and plastering up “old” bones kept everyone moving.  In fact a couple awesome finds include a partially

Rigging the Charge

articulated sauropod tail.  These caudal vertebra are pretty huge, coupled with the other new find; a large sauropod femur (I’m betting its going to be nearly 6 feet) makes me think we might have a near-adult.  Its some kind of diplodocid…..maybe a big Apatosaurus? 

So I said the week ended in a bang…and it did.  Josh and I got a

Mission Accomplished

rare treat on Friday.  We were invited to accompany the BLM to an old Uranium mine south of the Henry Mountains.  Three sticks of forgotten dynamite were found in some mines that have not been worked for over 30 years.  So we got to help the BLM and the St. George Bomb Squad locate

Boom!

the sticks and blow them sky high.  Sometimes I think I have the best job in the world.  Now we gear up for the next week of removing bones, doing tours and having fun……at work. 

Kathleen Scordato Giving a Tour

The quarry tours are going crazy….over 200 people had taken the tour by the end of the week.  Awesome….  We had a pretty diverse crew, Bruce and Jeanette Kelly, Steve Landi, Glen Palmer were all veterans, but we had our fair share of newbies too.  I’m happy to say that Burpee Field Programs continue to be a destination for other museum institutions.  In the past we have had volunteers and staff from Field Museum, American Museum of Natural History, Indianapolis Children’s Museum, Carnegie and now we can add the Museum of World Treasures in Wichita, Kansas who send out their Director of Education.

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By Marian "Mirm" Michaelis, June 20, 2009 5:13 pm

Mirm Near the Quarry

Heidi Strand, Burpee’s Director of Resource Development & Marketing and I are fresh off the plane and have some fun photos to share. For a very quick trip, we met so many people and accomplished a lot. We made it to the Hanksville-Burpee Quarry three times in three days, not bad considering we weren’t there to get dirty.

After meeting with the BLM and some local bussiness owners, we hit the Hanksville attractions and did some shopping. Because the site was rained out in the afternoon, the whole crew headed for Goblin Valley, a near by state park. More incredible geology and scenic views. Scott

Goblin Valley

reminded us all that some scenes from Galaxy Quest were filmed here. If you’ve seen the movie, seeing these blobby rock formations might ring a bell.

Other than eating at every restarant in Hanksville, I made a point to visit the local grocery store, the Information

Mirm at Goblin Valley

Center, that doubles as a weekly clinic, the BLM office, the new fire house and all three motels.

The highlights for me were the shakes at Stan’s Burger Shack, Jed’s Jerky and everything at Blondie’s including; their great service and fun staff, the blueberry pancakes

Blondie's

Jed's Jerky

and don’t forget the turquoise jewelry.

Scott Sporting His Beef-a-Roo Tee and Estwing Cap

On our final day, we made it out to the site on the way to fly out of Grand Junction CO. I got this great shot of Scott in his Beef a Roo tee. He is convinced that Beef a Roo could rename their Olive Burger after him. Personally I would go for the Blue Cheese Burger, “Mirm’s Surprise Burger”. I know, not as descriptive, but catchy.

Ultimately, we all agreed that all of the photos just don’t do justice to the real thing. The suraoundings are so vast and colorful you start to feel “scenery drunk” from taking it all in. It reminded me of my first trip to Alaska, the scope and magesty of it all. I hope you get a chance to experience Utah for yourselves one day.

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By Marian "Mirm" Michaelis, May 16, 2009 12:36 pm

Factory Butte

We headed over to the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) Office and met up with Sue Fivecoat and Buzz Rakow to check in. After getting up to speed we headed out to visit the Hanksville-Burpee Quarry. Once we arrived we spent a few hours prospecting the area and checking the site for vandalism. As some of you might know, last fall some of the dinosaur bones that we had plastered and buried became the victims of thievery.

Poach Pot

For the most part it seems that some of the material that was taken was small, easy to get to bones. However, we did find a very large hole that Josh could almost lay down in. It was not located in the main part of our quarry so we have no idea what was taken from there…..but it was big, possibly a big sauropod femur. The sad part is that people who do this are really stealing from themselves and their heritage. We will never know

Henry Mountains

what was really taken….was it a skeletal element to a new dinosaur? Perhaps an element that has never been fully described. In the end we all loose for someone to make a quick buck. Aside from this big hole, most of the site looked in good order.

Unexplored Territory

Josh and I made several visits to the site while we waited for our final permit. The remainder of the day was spent visiting several other promising localities and points of interest, including Factory Butte. This large exposure is a local sight-seeing place. It rises several hundred feet from the ground. Geologically it is an early Cretaceous marine deposit called the Mancos Shale. Oyster fossils can be found in the billions there and if you are lucky you can find some shark’s teeth. At the end of the day the realization that there is literally hundreds of miles of unexplored territory out there washed over us…..we have a lot of work to do.