Snowmass Jacket Pull

September 28, 2009

Check out the jacket pull slideshow.

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.

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.