Quarry day

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

There was a film crew out here last friday to film Brooks, his BYU crew and I as we worked to extract the remaining bones from the active quarry here. It was a long (and fun) 12-hour day with really really good food provided by the filming guys.

Couldn't ask for a more beautiful location.

The bedding plane at this quarry is dipping at about a 70° angle, which makes for interesting extraction. You end up working with bones stacked like this:

You can see the angle of dip better in this shot with Brooks:

The BYU crew came out a couple of days early to do some preliminary reliefing:

Pulling stuff out bit by bit:

Gluing those bits back together:

Prepping and stabilizing specimens in their jackets:

Spraying on some final hardener (vinac):

Kicking up lots of dust with the circular saw:

The BYU crew did an amazing job, as usual, and it was great to get to work with them again. Nothing beats quarry work, under the sun, with a view.

Neat interference ripples

Found these in the Chinle about a month ago:

Cool bugs in Hog's Canyon

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Night hawk hatchling

While working in the Chinle, there was an 1/8th mile stretch where I had to spend a couple of hours surveying and throughout the course of it was hollered at by this crazy bird that just wouldn't fly away. She was squawking and dive-bombing me at the end of the day, and when I went back the next day, there she was again! It took me quite a while to realize that she was trying to protect a nest.

Everytime I would approach her, she would fly further away and press her entire wingspan to the ground, making the worst screaming bird calls you could possibly imagine. She was leading me away from the nest, as I realized later, and pretending to be injured so that I would stalk her and gobble her up instead of her babies. How amazing is that?

Here she is, keeping a watchful eye:

The act:

Extremely incensed:

All for this little one (I got to pet a baby night hawk in the wild!! [don't worry, its momma came back afterwards to keep it and the other egg warm]):

friday's sunset

Sunday, August 2, 2009

What I'm doing instead of studying for the GRE

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Oh the temptatious delights that await you in Vernal...

Ryan and I went hunting for dinosaurs yesterday. We were able to find some participating in their favorite recreational activities, while others were chained up and serving time for assorted felonies like this guy:

it's okay, sinclairsaurus :'(

KISS lost it's backup singer:

Little Foot's mother was trafficked to the parking lot of an abandoned gift shop --

We give directions in Vernal by referencing where the destination is in relation to The Pink Dinosaur.

Check out those awesome eyelashes --

Ryan is extra excited by these prospects:

This next fellow likes to get dressed up for EVERY occasion. Here he is as his latest incarnation. All that's missing from this tasteful display is a "Honk if you ♥ drilling" sign.

Char, I can so hear your impersonation of MetaStreisand's enraged howl while looking at this:

Oh, don't worry, there's more where that came from.

New mammal track site

Sunday, July 26, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, I got to go with Dan and George out to this newly-discovered mammal trackway site in the Glen Canyon formation that you can read all about here (I took the third picture down). Press release just went out on this. Access to the area is difficult and it really is on a very steep, high-angle dune surface, they're going to have to get technical with ropes just to access the majority of tracks. Exciting to see paleontological discoveries (of far more paramount importance than the bone scrap we keep finding in the Chinle) in action!