Snowmass Dig
Safely Secured: After wrestling 800 pounds of dinosaur, rock, and plaster down the mountain for nearly four hours, the team pauses for a photo with the field jacket chained down tight on a flatbed. Wrapped up in the rock and plaster are parts of an as yet unidentified dinosaur from the Morrison Formation in the mountains near Aspen, Colorado. Click on the photos to get a larger view.
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- Bone in place
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- Digging the site, July 2009 - Mike Gordon, who discovered the dinosaur; Zeb Miracle, MWC Curator of Anthropology; ReBecca Hunt, MWC Paleontology Collections Manager
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- John Foster, Mike Gordon, and Zeb Miracle (July 2009)
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- Jacketing a small bone
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- Trenching and jacketing
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- Numbering the jacket before flipping it
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- John Foster and Jay Woods preparing to flip the jacket
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- Clean Break: Checking the pit for any fragments after a successful flip
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- Jay Woods, Mike Perry, and Darrell Bay preparing to crank the jacket down the hill
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- Mike Perry (in vest) leading the rope team
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- Sliding the jacket downhill (Zeb Miracle on lateral control)
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- Across the flats
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- Hold! Dragging now by Jeep down the steep section
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- Home stretch: Preparing to slide the jacket onto the trailer
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- Bennett and Jessica Bramson
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- The team with the secured jacket, Sept. 28, 2009. L to R: ReBecca Hunt, Darrell Bay, Mike Perry, Jay Woods, John Foster, Bennett Bramson, Zeb Miracle, Kay Fredette, Jessica Bramson, and Tom Schroer.
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- Darrell Bay preparing the jacket for the lift off the trailer
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- Hoisting
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- John Foster and Tom Schroer rotate jacket for the final set-down
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- Lowered into place
Excavated over several days spread out over the past summer, the field jacket will be prepared this fall, and we will find out (hopefully) exactly what kind of dinosaur it is. On Sept. 28 the jacket was pulled down to the trailer by winch, muscle, and Jeep and eventually secured for the trip to Fruita.
By The Numbers:
700 - Pounds of rock and bone in jacket, approximately
300 - Approximate number of feet jacket was hauled downhill to the flatbed trailer
125 - Pounds of plaster in jacket
106 - Paleontologist-hours invested in excavating, jacketing, and removing the specimen
2 - Ropes broken during extraction
1 - Video cameras nearly crushed during extraction
0 - Crew injuries during the process (Tom was taken down but was unscathed)
Special thanks to Bennett and Jessica Bramson for their donation of this specimen and for their hospitality during our work.