Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Back in the Saddle (Prep Chair) again

Well here we are back from our trip to Alaska. During that trip we visited :
1) The Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta- it is Mecca for dinosaur and Ichthyosaur lovers.
2) The Peace River Paleontology Research Center  in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia - shoestring budget but great potential, especially if you love animal tracks. Visit them in the late summer for best viewing of track sites.
3) The University of Alaska Fairbanks - imagine a giant painting of Hydrosaurs under the Northern Lights!
4) A dig with the U of AF on the first Elasmosaur found in Alaska - we recovered 14 backbones, a couple of ribs and a scapula. Not bad for two days standing in ledges about one foot wide that were about 50 feet up a 100 foot cliff!
5) The Discovery Place in Prince George - nice replicas of dinosaurs including one big sauropod that stretches through three rooms.

A few notes about timing. We left in mid-May and returned in mid-July.
1) We got out of Alaska before the mosquitoes got too bad.
2) We got out of Alaska before the fires got too bad and obscured the views.
3) If you go to the Canadian Rocky Mountains before June 1st plan on camping in Banff, as other campgrounds are still closed.

Back at OMSI, I have now finished preparing a very interesting piece of skull. It appears to be from the 'nose' region of a second skull, between the Nasal passage and the end of the snout. However, it does not exactly match what would be the same section in the first big skull we have prepared. Perhaps it is from a much larger skull, and was broken off somewhere above the inner (top)(proximal) end of the teeth. Anyway here are some pictures. The 3D printed version of the first skull is in the background for reference.