Murphy guilty?

The International Herald Tribune reported Thursday that Nate Murphy is expected to accept a guilty charge and plea bargain on the federal charges of fossil theft, according to court documents filed on Wednesday. Murphy faced up to ten years in prison if convicted.

snippet of story by The Associated Press:

"Murphy's case offers a rare glimpse into the illicit underside of paleontology, in which wealthy collectors are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for rare or unusual specimens. This weekend, a 150-million-year-old dryosaurus fossil taken from private land in Wyoming is expected to be auctioned for up to $500,000 in New York through the I.M. Chait Gallery.

Josh Chait, who runs the gallery, said the sales create financial incentives for exploration that can lead to groundbreaking discoveries.

Federal law generally prevents the removal of bones from public lands without a research permit. But the remoteness of many prime fossil grounds in Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and other western states makes enforcement difficult.

"There's probably somebody out stealing fossils from federal land in Montana today, and we don't know about it because there's not enough law enforcement to patrol all of these sites," said Martin McAllister, a private archaeological investigator from Missoula.

A sweeping public lands bill approved Thursday by the U.S. Senate contains penalties that specifically target fossil theft from federal land, which paleontologists have sought for years. The bill now heads to the House of Representatives for final action." [link]

Thanks to Rebecca for these recent updates on this story. You can read the progression of this story on the blog here.

International Herald Tribune story © the Associated Press, all else © ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster

The first Triceratops bonebed ...

Congrats to Josh Mathews on his first publication! And in Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology of all places! Josh has worked with the Burpee Museum of Natural History for quite some time and is finishing up his Masters degree at Northern Illinois University. I have known Josh for a number of years. We both worked on very similar Master's projects, so we have been in contact quite a bit over the years helping each other out. I know I was thrilled when I found out about this site - finally, a Triceratops bonebed! It has been interesting to see the project flesh out and to finally have the paper in print!

Josh and the Burpee crew found 130 bones and bone fragments belonging to Triceratops in the Hell Creek Formation during exploration between 2005 - 2007. The remains, found in a massive mudstone, indicated a minimum number of three juvenile individuals, based on the presence of three left nasals. The site was dominated by cranial and appendicular elements, with analysis showing that the remains were sorted by currents, washing away smaller elements. This site is the first published occurrence of a Triceratops bonebed.



Mathews, J. C., Brusatte, S. L., Williams, S. A. and Henderson, M. D. 2009. The first Triceratops bonebed and its implications for gregarious behavior. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 29(1):286-290

"Ceratopsid dinosaurs are some of the most common fossils in Upper Cretaceous terrestrial strata of western North America. They are often found in bonebeds, which are accumulations of vertebrate fossils from more than one individual that are concentrated along a bedding plane or throughout a single bed (Eberth and Getty, 2005). For example, 20 bonebeds have been reported from Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada, which contain Centrosaurus and Styracosaurus (Visser,1986; Ryan et al., 2001; Eberth and Getty, 2005). Additional bonebeds from localities across western North America have yielded remains of Agujaceratops (Lehman, 1982, 1989, Lucas et al., 2006), Anchiceratops (Dodson, 1996, Ryan et al., 2001), Einiosaurus (Rogers, 1990, Sampson, 1995), Pachyrhinosaurus (Langston, 1975; Tanke, 1988; Ryan et al., 2001), Styracosaurus (Dodson et al., 2004), Torosaurus (Hunt, 2005), and Zuniceratops (Wolfe and Kirkland, 1998). Some of these bonebeds contain the remains of hundreds to possibly thousands of individuals and represent catastrophic mass death assemblages that strongly indicate herding behavior (Eberth, 1996). Others contain significantly fewer individuals, with some preserving fewer than five.

Although Triceratops is the most common dinosaur in the terminal Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation (White et al., 1998), known from over 50 singleton specimens collected since the late nineteenth century, no bonebeds or associations of multiple individuals have previously been reported. A new locality in the latest Maastrichtian Hell Creek Formation of southeastern Montana, discovered in the summer of 2005 by a field crew from the Burpee Museum of Natural History (BMR) in Rockford, Illinois, contains the remains of three juvenile-sized Triceratops. This is the first occurrence of multiple individuals of Triceratops in the same quarry and raises potentially interesting questions regarding Triceratops paleobiology."

Homer the Triceratops at the Burpee Museum. See more pictures here.

Mathews, J. C., Brusatte, S. L., Williams, S. A., & Henderson, M. D. (2009). The first Triceratops bonebed and its implications for gregarious behavior Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 29 (1), 286-290

Murphy pleads guilty

An article in todays Great Falls Tribune reports that Nate Murphy pleaded guilty Monday to the state charges of fossil theft. Sentancing will be held May 27th.  

"Murphy, 51, was set to go to trial on March 18 but instead pleaded guilty in Phillips County District Court in Malta to felony theft....Separate federal charges of stealing fossils from Bureau of Land Management property are pending....Kevin O'Brien, spokesman for the Attorney General's office, which is prosecuting the case, said Monday that for now the raptor remains in the state's custody as evidence."

Read the rest of the article here. 

© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster

Murphy facing more charges

The Great Falls Tribune reports that Nate Murphy plead innocent Thursday to federal charges of stealing fossils from Bureau of Land Management land between August of 2006 and August of 2007. Details about what kind of fossils and how many are unknown at this time. Murphy faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, an additional three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine for the federal charges of theft of government property, as reported by the Great Falls Tribune on Thursday. The federal trial date is set for February 25, 2009.

The federal charges are in addition to state charges that were filed in Phillips County in September of 2008. These charges stem from the claim of theft of fossils (a small theropod) from private land outside of Malta, Montana. The state trial is slated to begin on March 18, 2009 in Malta, as reported by the Great falls Tribune on Friday.

Please check out the full stories at the Great Falls Tribune (by By Kim Skornogoski, a Tribune Staff Writer)for Thursday and Friday for complete details. You can also find details as this situation has progressed here.

Original story © by the Great Falls Tribune. Dinochick Blogs © ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster

Murphy charged with felony theft

As reported earlier*, Nate Murphy has been accused of stealing fossils from private land in Montana. Charges have officially been brought against Mr. Murphy for the theft of a small theropod skeleton. The New York Times reported today that Mr. Murphy has in fact been charged with felony theft after a year long investigation. The story begins in 2002 during an excavation in Montana, where Australian geologist, Mark Thompson, was a participant. He discovered the remains of a small theropod with Mr. Murphy, who is reported as asking Mr. Thompson to not report the find to Joann and Howard Hammond, with whom Murphy had a profit-sharing arrangement to excavate on their land. Mr. Murphy claims that he did not know the land he was working on did not belong to the Hammond family, but rather was leased from Bruce Bruckner, making the agreement with the Hammond’s void for the land where the fossils were found. Mr. Thompson did not tell the Hammonds about his discovery, but did show pictures and fossil remains taken from the site to paleontologist Robert Bakker.

In 2006 when Mr. Murphy took a specimen of a fossil turtle to the Dinosaur Field Station (now the Great Plains Museum) he told colleagues he found it near Saco, Montana (25 miles away). According to Murphy, it was not until later he discovered the remains of the small theropod under the turtle specimen, which he called “Sid Vicious.” Thompson contacted the Hammonds in 2007 when he heard about the discovery of “Sid Vicious.” The Hammonds contacted Mr. Bruckner, who them filled a complaint. Later, Mr. Murphy admitted to finding the fossil (fossils?) on Mr. Bruckner’s land and that he made a mistake in assuming he was on land he had an agreement to work on. Now Murphy is facing felony theft charges, to which he says he “has no choice but to plead guilty to…” A trial is set for March.

*Read some of the comments on the previous blog post as they are interesting and tell more of the story. The links are in the first sentence of this post.

The New York Times article is behind a registration wall, but can be read once registration is completed (and it is free). The above is paraphrased from Jim Robbins' New York Times article "Instead of Glory, the Finder of a Rare Dinosaur Fossil Faces Charges of Theft" and credit should be given to him for the reporting of this update. Thanks to the multiple people who brought this update in the story to my attention.

Update on the Montana "alleged" fossils theift story

Another story was published yesterday regarding the "alleged" theft of a small theropod skeleton in Montana. Portions of it can be found below and you can read the entire story here. I also encourage you to read some of the enlightening and interesting comments my previous blog story has received.

From the Billing Gazette:

Colleague takes digs at paleontologist

Texas curator stands by fossil Leonardo - but not by man who discovered it

By Ed Kemmick of The Gazette Staff

Montana's most famous dinosaur fossil soon will go on display in Texas unaffected by criminal charges against the paleontologist who discovered it, a museum official said.


Bob Bakker, curator of paleontology for the Houston Museum of Natural Science, said everything related to the discovery, excavation and preparation of the duckbill dinosaur nicknamed Leonardo was scientifically sound and well-documented.


Montana paleontologist Nate Murphy, who led the dig when Leonardo was discovered north of Malta in 2000, was charged last week with felony theft of a small raptor fossil.


The other good news from Houston, Bakker said, is that Leonardo wasn't damaged by Hurricane Ike, which battered Houston and the Gulf Coast over the weekend.

"Leo is safe," Bakker said. "That is the important thing. The whole museum did quite well."


The exhibition, "Dinosaur Mummy CSI: Cretaceous Science Investigation," was scheduled to open Friday. Because of Hurricane Ike, the opening probably will be delayed a couple of days, Bakker said.


The theft charges, filed in Phillips County, allege that Murphy stole the raptor fossil, which when alive weighed about as much as a red fox, from property owned by Bruce Bruckner and leased to Howard and JoAnn Hammond, on whose land Leonardo was discovered in 2000.


In an article in the Great Falls Tribune last week, Murphy said the whole thing was simply a misunderstanding. He said he and his son found the raptor under a fossilized turtle and didn't even realize the raptor was there at first.


The charging documents say Murphy initially told the Hammonds that the raptor in question was another specimen found near Saco.


Bakker, who has been cooperating with the state since it began investigating the case in June 2007, said he was told by Murphy that only a few raptor fragments were found on the land the Hammonds leased from Bruckner, and that the more complete raptor fossil was discovered near Saco and was entirely owned by the Judith River Foundation. The foundation owned the Judith River Dinosaur Field Station in Malta, where Murphy was the director of paleontology.


Bakker said Saturday that he was upset that Murphy continued to portray the incident as a misunderstanding. He said the discovery of the raptor on the Bruckner property was thoroughly documented with photographs, field notes and Global Positioning System data, and that there is no question that only one raptor was found.


"In this case, the ethical violation was clear-cut," Bakker said. "The documentation of the digging of the raptor was very complete."


Regardless of whether Murphy intended to profit from claiming ownership of the raptor fossil, Bakker said, he committed "one of the mortal sins of museum work" by "falsifying locality data."


"That will get you fired anywhere," Bakker said.


It is important to establish location not only in regard to ownership and compensation, Bakker said. From a scientific standpoint, much of the value of a specimen is lost if scientists don't know where it was found. That has become even more important in recent years with the increasing emphasis on ecological paleontology, he added.


Murphy, reached Monday in Billings, where he owns a cleaning-supplies distributorship, disputed Bakker's statements and said he couldn't say much to defend himself because of the pending criminal case. The charges arose from an investigation conducted jointly by the FBI, the Bureau of Land Management and the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation.


"I feel like I'm overwhelmed on this," Murphy said. "There are a lot of outside circumstances that aren't being reported. I haven't been able to tell my side of the story. When everything is put out there - it's about money and prestige......"


I encourage you to keep reading. The story gets a bit more strange.......................

Honesty is the best policy

From the Great Falls Tribune:

September 10, 2008

Paleontologist accused of stealing fossil

By KIM SKORNOGOSKI
Tribune Staff Writer

Nate Murphy, the paleontologist who discovered several of Malta's most famous fossils, including the dinosaur mummy Leonardo, was charged Tuesday in Phillips County with stealing a turkey-sized raptor fossil.

The result of a yearlong investigation, state prosecutors allege that Murphy lied about where the raptor was found in order to sell replicas of the fossil, which is estimated to be worth between $150,000 and $400,000.

Murphy was the director of paleontology with the Dinosaur Field Station in Malta for 15 years before resigning July 1, 2007 — one month after the Montana Division of Criminal Investigations, the FBI and the Bureau of Land Management began their investigation.

"I could be a millionaire now if I had the intention of selling those specimens I've been collecting for years," Murphy said Tuesday. "I do what I love to do. It's never been about money."

Since 1993, Murphy has run a paleo-outfitting business, taking crews of amateur diggers to ranches outside Malta and Grass Range looking for dinosaur bones.

In those years, he found a new species of long-necked dinosaur near Grass Range, a family of Stegosauruses near Malta and three duckbills — which now share a home at Malta's new Great Plains Dinosaur Museum.

His most amazing find was Leonardo, considered the world's best-preserved dinosaur, complete with organs, skin and tissue that could unlock mysteries dating back 77 million years. The fossil graced the cover of Newsweek and National Geographic and is the star of an hourlong documentary debuting Sunday on the Discovery Channel.

As a result of the investigation, just who owned those fossils came into question. Murphy had a long-standing arrangement with the Hammond family to dig on their property about 26 miles north of Malta.

According to the affidavit charging Murphy, he agreed to report all significant finds to the Hammonds before excavating or removing them, and that all dinosaurs would be owned 50 percent by the Hammonds and 50 percent by Murphy's Dinosaur Field Institute.

"We basically trust people and our intentions were always to keep the dinosaurs in Phillips County," Howard Hammond said. "We thought that was Nate's intention, too. It's just a difficult situation."

The institute is Murphy's private business, which operated out of the former Dinosaur Field Station. However, the field station was funded by the separate nonprofit Judith River Dinosaur Foundation.

With the business and nonprofit so similarly named, it became unclear to the Hammonds and others just what was owned by Murphy and what was owned by the foundation.

With the investigation looming, Murphy agreed to sign over his 50 percent ownership of the fossils to the nonprofit foundation.

Murphy said the allegations that he stole the raptor are a misunderstanding. He said his son found the turkey-sized dinosaur underneath a fossilized turtle that he didn't realize was even there.

He chose not to tell the Hammonds about it, because he worried that as a result of the high-profile finds of their land they would want to "put a price tag on every specimen we found."

But according to court documents, Murphy first tried to hide the raptor's discovery from other paleontologists, partners and the Hammonds, and then lied about where it was found, saying he excavated it from a site near Saco.

Court documents allege that Murphy, therefore, claimed sole ownership of the raptor and didn't have to share profits or control with the Hammonds.

The investigation revealed that the fossil was actually discovered in 2002 by Mark Thompson, who volunteered to dig with Murphy for two summers. Thompson, who lives in Australia, told investigators that Murphy asked him not to bring up the discovery to the Hammonds.

Because the bones are so small, finding a raptor so well-preserved is rare. The fossil was complete with parts of fingers, the back of the skull, a fully articulated spine and the brain case.

In 2006, Murphy went back to excavate the raptor and sent the fossil to the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in South Dakota.

Murphy signed an agreement with the Black Hills Institute to loan the raptor fossil for the purpose of making molds and casts with Murphy's Judith River Dinosaur Institute, making 20 percent in royalties off the sales of all cast specimens.

It wasn't until Murphy planned to reveal the raptor at Malta's Wine and Dino Days in June 2007 that Bakker and others began asking questions about the raptor's origin and about the ownership of Leonardo and the other fossil finds.

"I wished we had done it differently," Murphy said. "The specimen was cataloged. There was no attempt to abscond with it or sell it. My record speaks for itself.

"I think what's happened is because of the fact that I've become very high-profile over the years. People were out to get me."

Murphy said he has never sold fossils. However, his son Matt Murphy, who digs with him, has sold small fossils as a hobby, but never made a major profit from it, he said.

"It's ridiculous the things that have been said. I'm not trying to hide anything," he said.

However, Murphy's partner in the Leonardo Project LLC, Joe Iacuzzo, said he discovered Murphy and his son sold several fossils on the Internet and at dinosaur conventions.

"We will never know how long he's been selling dinosaurs and if what he sold was scientifically significant," Iacuzzo said.

The allegations shocked many scientists, including Bynum-area paleontologist David Trexler, who wrote much of the study of Leonardo and worked with Murphy on several digs.

Trexler and Murphy even set up dinosaur dig ethics standards for museums like the ones in Malta and Bynum that are part of the Montana Dinosaur Trail.

"This really blindsided me," Trexler said. "I keep thinking that there should have been something that one of us should have picked up on that would have stopped the damage from going on for so long."

The U.S. Attorney's Office would not comment on the federal investigation, including if any federal charges would be filed against Murphy.

Sue Frary, the director of programs and exhibits at the Great Plains Dinosaur Museum, said the foundation fully cooperated with investigators and worked to quickly respond to secure ownership of the Malta dinosaurs, including Leonardo.

Frary did field work with Murphy dating back to 2002 and is one of the founding members of the nonprofit foundation. She said a team of paleontologists are now in the area and are working to track down GPS coordinates of all the specimens at the museum.

"The focus is the fossils," she said Tuesday. "The focus is the museum here and what that can do economically for Malta, for the Hi-Line and for northeastern Montana."

The foundation expects to double the number of digs next year, and Frary is busy planning new exhibits and educational programs to roll out this winter.

Bakker, who is overseeing a major new exhibit featuring Leonardo at the Houston museum, said none of the allegations against Murphy affect the scientific study of the mummified duckbill.

"Leonardo has always been examined with the best science," he said.

Head of the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation John Strandell said until the case is resolved, the raptor remains in state custody as evidence. Eventually, the raptor will be returned to its owner, Bruce Bruckner, who leases land to the Hammonds.

"We realize without Nate that all of these wonderful fossils would probably still be in the ground," Howard Hammond said. "The rest of the world wouldn't have the opportunity to know about it.

"Nate's made some real poor decisions, and we actually feel a little betrayed."

[link]

Book reviews: the result of two weeks without internet

When I was in the field this past week (almost two) I had the chance to read (alot, more on that tomorrow). I had taken two new books with me, which I plowed through in less than 13 days. So I thought I would tell you a little bit about them in case you were interested.

Swine Not?: A novel, by Jimmy Buffett
This is a cute story about a pig and her family. She lives in a fancy New York City hotel and is constantly being hid from the hotel cook who hates animals and wishes to cook her. The pig is one a mission to find her brother, and the story is told from the pig and one of the children in the family's point of view. The official summary is: "When Southern belle Ellie McBride moves her twins from Vertigo, Tennessee to New York City, they wouldn't dream of leaving behind the family pig Rumpy. But the posh hotel where Ellie has found work (and living space) has "No Pets" writ large on its portal. So hiding Rumpy from the hotel staff---especially the ultra-carnivorous hotel chef, who would like nothing better than to transform their pet into pork roast---becomes imperative." (link)

I decided to read this book for the obvious reason - it is written my Jimmy Buffett, of whom which I am a loyal fan. It was no where near as long as his past books (256 pages, at least it felt shorter) and the chapters were very short. The story was easy to follow and almost reminded me of a young adults book (not that that is a bad thing, it was just an easy read), and was adapted, in part, from his friends true troubles of hiding her pet pig in a fancy NYC hotel. I am an animal lover, so I understand how the family in the book feels like it must go to great lengths to protect their hoofed family member. This book is an easy read for anyone, and would be a great story to read to kids, since the chapters are short, the tale is fun, and the characters are easy to relate with. It is not your typical Jimmy book however with drunk sailors/cowboys, tropical places, and lyric references dropped in random places. Still a good read however.

Forget Me Not, by Jennifer Lowe-Anker
"In September 1999, climbing legend Alex Lowe lost his life in an avalanche on Tibet’s Shishapangma, leaving behind his wife Jennifer and three sons. In the months that followed this devastating tragedy, Jennifer and Alex’s climbing partner Conrad Anker, who survived the avalanche that killed Alex, found solace in each other and were married in 2001. Now, Jennifer Lowe-Anker’s new book Forget Me Not, A Memoir, offers a portrait of Alex Lowe through letters and expedition notes, spanning continents to tell the story of three people whose lives intertwine to a degree they could never have imagined." (link)

I devoured this book!! I really enjoyed it, and would recommend it to anyone. It was a nice read, and it surprisingly did not make me cry as much as I was afraid it would (Maria Coffey's Where the Mountain Cast Its Shadow made me pretty much cry through the entire book). Very interesting, touching story. I really enjoyed hearing about how she and Alex met, fell in love, all of the adventures they shared together, and how she handled her life while her husband was away doing what he loved while she continued to do what she loved (she is an accomplished artist). It was also fun to find some similarities between herself and I, on personal life experiences we have both had. It was sad knowing how he died and how hard it must have been for her to break the news to her children, that part really got to me, along with all of the other loss she has had to bear. Overall I think it shows just how strong of a woman Lowe-Anker is - how she lost her true love but was able to keep going forward and putting one foot in front of the other and was able to find love again. Great story, you should really check it out!

Here is an interview clip:



Whats next? Not sure. I have several books I would like to read: The Songlines, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time, The Namesake, and Farewell, My Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Living. Not sure which one will come first....any other recommendations out there?

CONGRATS LAURA!!!

I just want to send a big congratulations out there to my friend Laura Wilson whose first published paper "Comparative taphonomy and paleoecological reconstruction of two microvertebrate accumulations from the Late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation (Maastrichtian), eastern Montana" came out in the new issue of PALAIOS today. Check it out! [abstract - PDF] [paper - BioOne]

"Although microvertebrate accumulations are commonly used for paleoecological reconstructions, taphonomic processes affecting the final taxonomic composition of an accumulation are often ignored. This research explores the effects of abiotic taphonomic processes on the taxonomic composition of terrestrial microvertebrate accumulations by comparing a floodplain and a channel lag deposit from the Maastrichtian Hell Creek Formation in eastern Montana. Distribution of skeletal elements with specific physical attributes and relative abundance of taxa correlate with the hydraulic indicators (i.e., grain size, sedimentary structures) of the depositional facies. Transport distances, hydraulic equivalencies of dominant skeletal elements, amount of hydraulic sorting and reworking, and degree of time averaging vary between deposits and significantly affect taxonomic distributions. Relative abundance data, in conjunction with chi-square test results and rank-order analysis, show that size, shape, abrasion, and taxonomic compositions vary significantly between assemblages. The fine-grained assemblage is dominated by tabular, low-density elements, such as cycloid scales and fish vertebrae. Dense, equidimensional elements, such as teeth and ganoid fish scales, dominate the sandstone assemblage. Rank-order analysis results demonstrate that relative abundance of hydraulically equivalent skeletal elements from morphologically similar organisms can be compared regardless of accumulation in nonisotaphonomic deposits. Statistical comparisons were made among osteichthyans using ganoid scales, caudates using vertebrae, ornithischians using teeth, and testudinates using shell fragments. Results show that portions of the assemblage analyzed using hydrodynamically equivalent elements are not significantly different, despite different depositional environments."