Dinosaur Excavation

On Saturday we had the rare opportunity of going to a dinosaur excavation. In November a partially articulated allosaurus fossil was found just outside of Castledale, Utah. Last week the College of Eastern Utah began the excavation of the fossil. Because the site was so accessible they invited the public to come and view it. This is not common practice.

When I saw the article in the Deseret News about the excavation, I knew we had to go. Michael is such a dinosaur fanatic. A few nights before I heard about the excavation Michael had watched a documentary on Allosauruses. When asked what he wants to eat it is almost always dinosaur chicken nuggets. He is always playing with his toy dinosaurs and reading books about them, too.

Bright and early on Saturday morning we set out for Castledale. The night before Alex and I had packed lunch for us. Our lunch included dinosaur sandwiches (sandwiches imprinted with a dinosaur shape).

I had to laugh at Lorenne. With in just a short time she was asking, "are we there yet?" It was about a two hour drive to where we turned off the main road. Then there was a 9 mile drive on a graded dirt road to the Gooseneck site. It is called the Gooseneck site because of how the head of the dinosaur was pulled back and tucked under, kind of like how a goose tucks its head under its wing.

Once we reached the site it was about a five minute hike to the excavation. There were quite a few people there. Not tons, but the flow of people in and out was steady. I was really surprised at how close we were to the actual fossil. I reached down and picked up a fossil that was right in front of me. They had a large part of the fossil cast in plaster. They use the plaster to keep all the pieces together as they transport them.

It turned out that there were actually two dinosaur fossils there. One was the allosaurus and the other was a sauropod, like a brontosaurus or brachiasaurus. It was totally fascinating to see the way they worked. They mapped out and drew each bone as they found it. They used little umpire brooms to sweep dirt away. It is a slow and tedious process. They had found a piece of a tooth, the edge of which was serrated. This was the tooth of a meat eater that was designed to cut and tear flesh. When Michael held the tooth he started to bury it back in the dirt.

Michael was pretty excited about being there. It was a little abstract for him to understand because a big portion of the bones were covered in plaster. But he still enjoyed it. I think he enjoyed digging in the dirt as much as anything.

We had such a wonderful time and felt truly blessed to have such a unique opportunity. It was more than worth the time that we invested in the trip. After all, how many dinosaur loving boys can say that they have been to a real dinosaur excavation?