Science Teacher's Field Institute 2008 - Day 1

Lost in Time Ranch

On the first night of Project Exploration's Science Teacher Field Institute, Dr. Paul Sereno, along with myself and Jason, went to the excavation site ahead of the first day of fieldwork to prepare the site for the STFI crew. First, to open up the site, which had been identified on a previous visit, we cleared away tarps and dirt, and assessed what still needed to be done. It became obvious that this job was much bigger that the three of us, so Paul enlisted the help of Jim and Jared - the father and son team who work on the ranch - to use their back-hoe to clear away debris and about 10 feet of dirt over the dinosaur skeleton we are hoping to excavate.

Feeling that we were more likely to get run over by the back-hoe than to be useful, Jason and I went back to the house to prepare dinner. Earlier that day we had stopped in a town called Baker to buy groceries. We couldn't find a grocery store, and so I radioed to Jason's car about whether there would be another chance to stop at a grocery store. As luck would have it, we were not the only ones using the radio frequency and a gentleman informed us that his town does indeed have a grocery store and directed us to it.

Even our shopping trip was eventful. We ran into a paleontologist from Yale in Montana to look for fossil turtles. He was even excavating in the same formation, the Hell's Creek formation, as our crew!

Jason and I bought buffalo meat (after Jason was asked to pronounce our request several times in his British accent) which we cooked into bison burgers that night. We had dinner with Jim, Jared, and Mindy - an amazingly energetic ranch hand - and got ready to start excavating the next morning.

Jason and Ewan celebrate the excavation, note the back-hoe parked in the background