Fieldwork Friday #8

The last week of May I returned to Nebraska to work with friends in the Oligocene White River Badlands of Shalimar Ranch (my fourth year in a row). As I have mentioned before, during the summer, the Geology Department at Augustana College (where I worked last year) offers a 3-credit course entitled "Fossil Mammals of the Badlands." This 2-week course travels to the White River Badlands of South Dakota and Nebraska to learn about the paleontology and geology of the area. The group camps on the ranch, outside of Harrison, Nebraska, and collects fossils on this privately owned land. This trip has become a tradition, with the first trip in 1982. Sadly, this may have been our last year. The ranch is now fore sale. If you know of anyone with a few extra million dollars you might tell them to look it up. It is a beautiful place.

White River Badlands on Shalimar Ranch

The weather was great when I arrived on the ranch! My first day in the field I had a chance to work with one of the students to remove a beautiful Oreodont skull and arm. This student, one of the geology department majors (we often have non geology majors on the trip) did the right thing. He found a skull and instead of trying to excavate it on his own, he came and found one of the instructors so we could show him how to properly excavate the specimen. I wish I had taken more pictures of the entire process, but here is a picture of the skull before we removed it.

Oreodont skull

I did not find too much this year. Many [fossil] turtles (tons of turtles in this area), occasional disarticulated mammal postcrania, and quite a few dentaries and isolated teeth (some pictures below of some of the random things I collected). The stuff I collected last year was pretty cool [picture].

The ranch has received a higher than usual amount of rain this past year and there were quite a few horney toads out and even a few frogs! Only one rattlesnake was spotted this year.

Horney toad!

Due to all the moisture there were some great mudcracks in the flats (see my new blog background). I got caught up in photographing them which was great when last week I had a chance to see a Jurassic example of curled mudcracks, very similar to what I saw in the field while on the ranch.

Mudcracks

Unfortunately, after two full days in the field we got rained out. It rained more in Harrison in one day than it had in the past 9 years (according to the local bar talk). It soaked everything. Several of the students tents quickly became small swimming pools, and I located a new hole in my tent rainfly. And of course it was located directly above my sleeping bag (lucky for me I have a waterproof bag!). Some quick improvising led me to use a car window sun shade to deflect the drips until I could get home and buy a patch. What did I learn from this (and another large hole I found in the tent itself) - never loan your tent out.

During a brief stop in the rain

The rest of the trip was spent visiting the Black Hills, Agate Fossils Beds National Monument, and Fort Robinson State Park, generally dodging the rain. It was a great trip. I hope we get a chance to return to the ranch next year!

At the Trailside Museum at Fort Robinson State Park

At Agate Fossils Beds National Monument

© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster. Please see the "Field Work Friday Rules" about the work I do and collection practicies.

Off to the field!

This week and all of next I will be out in northwestern Nebraska doing fieldwork! During the summer, the Geology Department at Augustana College (where I worked last year) offers a 3-credit course entitled "Fossil Mammals of the Badlands." This 2-week course travels to the White River Badlands of South Dakota and Nebraska to learn about the paleontology and geology of the area. The group camps on Shalimar Ranch, outside of Harrison, Nebraska, and collects fossils on privately owned land. This trip has become a tradition, with the first trip in 1982. This will be my fourth trip and we have smaller group this year than last, so that may be a good thing (shorter lines for the shower at least!). I am looking forward to getting out and doing some field work, enjoying the sun (hopefully!) and peace that comes from being in the field. Hopefully this year I will not get sick (last year I got strep throat which ate up most of my field time). You can read about last years trip here, here and here. 

After the trip I will be heading to Casper, Wyoming to attend the Second Annual Fossil Preparation and Collections Symposium. Hope to see some of you there!

Post will resume reguarly the second week of June. Thanks for reading!

© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster

Badlands Trip Notes: Part 3

My field work fun had come to an end. I woke up with no voice and a horrible sore throat and plugged nose. I opted to stay in that day - I just felt rotten. I went inside and crashed out on one of the bunks, then went into town (Harrison - about 10 miles to the south) later that day. Soup and hot chocolat...The next morning was the beginning of the ende helped some, but the next day I was not any better and it had moved into my nose/sinuses and set up camp. So, once again, I missed another day in the field, plus the trip to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. I had a fever and spent most of the day sleeping in the bunk house. The next day my throat was better, but my head felt miserable. This was the day the student got to take a trip to Mount Rushmore and Hill City to visit the Black Hills Institute of Geologic Research. I felt like crap on a stick but went so I could get meds and cell service so I could call the doctor to make an appointment for the day after we returned. I spent most of the day sleeping in th van, but did make it inside to see Pete Larson's cool Triceratops they are working on. Some great stuff coming from it and I can't wait to see it published! I then returned to the van for more sleeping. The next day was the last day of field work and I missed it!!! Being sick in the field sucks!!! I was none to happy about this, but I also had no energy to walk to my tent, let alone prospect. I stuck close to the bunk house, rested and read (see post on books, the best thing to come from being sick!).

The student who had found the two oreodont skulls the first day seemed to have a good eye. He found a weird skull on one of the days that I was sick (left). We think it is maybe a bear dog (Daphoenodon) or a creodont. After I got it prep'ed I am now leaning toward creodont (see below). The teeth look off to me if it were a bear dog. Would anyone out there like to venture a guess (or just tell me the answer??).






The students had to take their final exam in the bunk house this year because we were having quite a bit of rain. Every day that I missed field work it rained. All the students had studied pretty hard for the test and they did pretty well. Some students also opt to write a paper over an aspect of the White River Badlands (picked from a list we have), for more credit. This was a really good bunch of students. They were all very nice, sober (for the most part) and well behaved (especially compared to past years) and it was a nice change! I didn't feel like I was babysitting!
The next day we headed back to the real world. The wind in Nebraska was horrible, out of the southeast, and we had Yakama racks on top of the vans, so it was awful trying to keep the vans on the road (and scary at times!) Come to find out there had been straight-line winds and tornadoes the day before and we saw some of that damage. When we stopped for dinner in Des Moines we were disturbed to see that they racks had actually been moved by the wind! They had been on the right side of the van but were now in the center! Not a fun thing to discover. I was happy to be home, but it was rather bitter sweet, since I had missed so many days of field work and knew it would be my last trip as Hammer's research assistant. He and I get along really well and it has been really nice working for him.