OCR Text |
Show B6 Wednesday, April 27, 2005 L ' . L : - & I I 1 Dale Gray, president of the Uinta Basin Chapter of Utah Friends of Paleontology, with some of the items purchased by the group for donation to the paleo lab at Dinosaur National Monument. Paleo IFrieoDds help wncover Site pas'S in She UMck iasin Things have changed a bit since the days when Dinosaur National Monument used to order ice picks by the case. The monument's fossil pre-parators pre-parators would pull off the picks' wood handles, then use the steel points as tiny chisels for the surprisingly delicate task of exposing 145-million-year-old dinosaur bones. Today, many more sophisticated sophis-ticated tools are available' for fossil preparation, but tight federal budgets can make it hard to keep them in stock in the Dinosaur Quarry's paleon-tological paleon-tological lab. This is where the Uinta Basin Chapter of Utah Friends of Paleontology (UFOP) recently stepped in. UFOP is a statewide non-profit organization organiza-tion dedicated to appreciating and protecting our fossil heritage. heri-tage. With funds left from hosting the group's annual convention last year, the local chapter was able to purchase several needed need-ed but pricey items to donate to the monument's paleo program. Chapter president Dale Gray, a longtime volunteer for the monument, presented about $400 worth of gear to Scott Madsen, the National Park Service employee who manages man-ages the paleo lab. The donation dona-tion includes stainless steel cast cutter blades (for opening protective plaster jackets, just about like a doctor cutting a cast from a broken limb), tungsten tung-sten carbide tips for the Murray Air Scribes (small power drills used to remove rock, almost grain-by-grain, from fossil bone surfaces) and a magnifying visor for preparators to wear during such small-scale work. 1,000 Cars and Trucks. 1,000 Winners. Slioibutton Push it real good! fjOM 1 in 3,000 1 Hot Button. fmi Z: '5J1 L. With the Quarry's spectacular spectacu-lar display of dinosaur bones, exposed in their original positions posi-tions in the rock largely complete com-plete by the late 1980s, the paleo program's focus shifted to sites outside the Quarry where fossils had been revealed by natural weathering. Over the last . two decades, . numerous specimens that were in danger dan-ger of being lost to erosion (or possibly to illegal collecting) have been excavated, jacketed in plaster, and brought to the paleo lab for detailed preparation prepara-tion and study. Most fossils collected this way are initially left "in the rough," still partly embedded in the sedimentary rock that has encased them for ages. Blocks from the field remain in their plaster jackets until there are both time and able bodies to work on them. Once the jacket has been cut open and peeled off, the remaining rock must be carefully removed from around the fossil bone to expose details that might reveal a previously unknown species or shed new light on the latest theory. The Air Scribe, with various sizes of tips, allows more precise control than the old ice pick, but hasn't necessarily neces-sarily speeded up the process. Gray estimates he has spent about 370 hours so far on a single sin-gle sauropod vertebra one segment of backbone from one of the big, long-necked plant eaters such as Apatosaurus or Diplodocus and still has a ways to go. Depending on the hardness of the rock, each Air Scribe tip wears down in a few months, but the UFOP donation of nine tips should get Gray chance of winning. .Vernal I through this block and well into more of them. And there are plenty more. Since preparation is such a time-consuming process, the monument's inventory of specimens speci-mens has grown steadily over the years. An ongoing volunteer volun-teer program helps with both field and lab work, but Madsen especially wants to recruit more long-term volunteers like Gray. "It takes time to develop the skills," Madsen says, and once he's trained someone for the exacting prep work, he'd hope to see them stay in the program pro-gram for months or even years. "What I'd reaUy like," he says, "is someone who could work in the lab independently while I'm out in the field." As the summer field season corresponds to the monument's highest visitation months, having hav-ing someone working in the lab (which can be viewed from the Quarry exhibit gallery) would also enhance the experience of many more visitors. With construction con-struction of the shared curatorial curato-rial facility planned to adjoin the Utah Field House museum in Vernal, volunteers will eventually even-tually be able to work on specimens speci-mens in a state-of-the-art paleo lab also visible to the public. Prospective volunteers are encouraged to contact Scott Madsen at the Quarry at 781-7705. 781-7705. Information on other fossils fos-sils and volunteer opportunities opportuni-ties all around the state can be found at the Utah Friends of Paleontology website, www. utahpaleo.org. Express, I it 5 w JllllilllllP : Bob Evans of Fox 13 and Uintah County Silver Bowl Award recipient Mildred Daggett County Silver Bowl Award recipient Ruby (Tootie) Hoover in center. d Silver Bowl Award The Silver Bowl Award is presented silver bowls, donated Mildred Long was the Uintah awarded to outstanding volun- by O.C. Tanner Company, to County Silver Bowl Award teers in each county for their the volunteers. FOX 13's Bob recipient and Ruby (Tootie) service in the community. On Evans emceed the luncheon at Hoover was the Daggett County April 13, Lt. Gov. Garry Herbert the Provo Marriott Center. Silver Bowl Award recipient. Want to know what your HG.Y3'k worjh in today's real estate mar4"" ' Call TROY for a fee rcftn, c'i rrzfrzt trclysis. Let Troy's Cell: Powerhouse Dinner Theatre y.1 o a .-.- I : ,taM.-:r " SB 22 ytars cf cr:rL..Z7 70 - 435 vvw.trcy!rcd SHOW: VHEN: TIME: WIIEIIE: -A r - i Long. "ly'inii.ni imihhi inn mwnt 1 r.ztk fcr yzul Guys and Dolls Friday, April 29th 7:00 p.m. Powerhouse ' 435 N. Vernal Ave. mm - J' J I i Hp . ' ) j Ji4 781-1440 Please come prepared to sing with your own accompanist. 5 i 1 it 4 &3 (be Titeffi) SteFU Her? imoi?? ism |