Geoscience Reference
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the stroll to the discovery site was surprisingly short, taking only about twenty
minutes. We stopped when Dave said “This is it” and started digging.
In accordance with their permit for working on U.S. Forest Service land, the
fieldcrewhadfolloweda“Leave NoTrace” edict byburyingthediscoverysiteand
restoring it to an approximation of what it looked like before their arrival. I found
this amusing on many levels. For one, the disturbed soil there betrayed the crew's
former presence, as did the dried flecks of white plaster on the ground, which had
persisted despite whatever weather had taken place between their jacketing the di-
nosaur in July and our visit in September. I also pondered the metaphysical implic-
ations of the Forest Service imploring us to minimize our tracemaking, which in-
volved digging, while we investigated a trace fossil from a digging dinosaur. I fur-
ther wondered whether such thoughts might generate a self-absorbed poem, read
aloudlateratanurbancoffeehouseandaccompaniedbyclickingfingersofappreci-
ation. Fortunately for much of the world, this ambition slipped away as soon as our
shovels chopped the ground and we started to pile weathered mudstone around us.
At some point in our careful excavation, we reached the surface where Dave
and the others in the field crew had placed plastic sheets above the possible burrow
and the not-so-final resting spot of the dinosaur skeleton. From here we became
even more vigilant and began to clear away some of the softer reddish-green mud-
stone that enveloped the more solid whitish sandstone filling the presumed burrow.
However, this work was cut short as the sun thwarted our objective by falling to-
ward the western horizon. We hastily covered our previous efforts with a shallow
layer of sediment. Dave's friends had to leave the next morning, but he and I would
come back to see what lay beneath. That night, we enjoyed a meat-and-pie-laden
dinner at a restaurant in nearby Dell, Montana—The Dell Calf-A, with its name
written cursively with a neon “lasso”—and we slept at a cheap motel with running
water,electricity,andanintactroofoverhead.Inotherwords,wewereexperiencing
the height of luxury for field paleontologists.
