Project Exploration Blog

A few days ago, Project Exploration program director, Kristin Atman and I converged on Paul’s prospecting team at the Lost in Time Ranch in Montana.

After arriving in Billings we skirted the southern bank of the Yellowstone River in the 105-year shadow of Lewis and Clark, stopping only for a rock-hounding session outside of Miles City, Cow Capital of the World.

We took the “back route” to the ranch after encouragement from the ranch managers, who assured us the route was well marked.

In the case that you, too, decide to take the back route, I feel some obligation to point out that the Pine Unit Anticline Road is actually TWO different roads. If you take the right one, you will, eventually, arrive at the auspicious entrance to the Lost in Time Ranch, brand marking “Bar None.”

The prospecting team – comprised of University of Chicago paleontologist and Project Exploration cofounder Paul Sereno, Jason Moore and his field assistant Cory Redman from Texas A&M University, paleontologist and University of Madison vet-school grad student Ewan Wolff, recent UChicago graduate Aki Watanabe, Bob Masek, fossil preparator extraordinaire from the University of Chicago Fossil Lab and new UChicago graduate student Justin Lemberg- had been in the field for a week, surveying the 50-square mile property.

(Jason and Ewan are veteran Project Exploration summer staff, having helped lead our Science Teacher Field Institute program, most recently in the summer of 2009. Remarkably, they keep coming back for more.)

Rising at the crack of dawn, hiking hill and vale, dodging rainstorms (except when one time there was less “dodging” and more “sticking”), brutalizing the rental vehicles of a company which will remain nameless, the team surfaced more than a dozen sites worth further investigation and, in some cases, collecting, including a cute little freshwater fossil turtle. (Paul was so thrilled with the find he demonstrated the death pose for the crew.)

When we arrived the team was in good spirits, ready to head out to cover the last few pastures.

Intensive prospecting requires at least 1) a set of topographic maps and aerial maps (if available) to try to identify where outcrop may be lurking, 2) a geographic map showing – if there are any – roads and 3) a good sense of humor because inevitably, the outcrop will be overgrown and roads which once existed may also be, well, overgrown.

Luckily with folks like Jason, Ewan and Corey, (aka “los tres chieflados”) the team had all three in spades.

The team hasn’t just been prospecting, they’ve also been studying the finds till the wee hours of the dawn. (Read “studying” as sometimes involving screen washing sediment off micro-fossils in the laundry room of the lodge and laying the specimens out to dry on the ironing board.)

In a few days the prospecting crew will head out of the field and I’ll return to Billings with Jason Moore to pick up two very special groups: our Best Science Program Evah’ team of Chicago Public School high school students and our Sereno Dinosaur Expedition team, made up of some of very special Project Exploration supporters.

The Best Science Program Evah’ team will be blogging regularly – we’ll keep you posted. These students will be working with former Project Exploration alumna and staffer, Elean Schroeter, now a PhD paleontology graduate student at Drexel University as well as with Paul and myself. In addition to fieldwork, they’ll be designing Project Exploration’s newest field program. (More on this later!)

Meanwhile, the Sereno Dinosaur Expedition team will be working under Paul’s direction to help move the fieldwork forward.

Helping make science “accessible” to the public, especially minority youth and girls, through personalized experiences with science and scientists is what Project Exploration is all about. Fieldwork with students and families, surrounded by geologists, paleontologists and evolutionary biologists, is about as good as it gets. Thanks to an incredible lodge nestled in the heart of the dinosaur-age badlands of the Hell Creek Formation, designed especially with Project Exploration in mind, and managed by a wonderful Montana ranching family, we’ve got the makings of the start of an unforgettable field season.

Dinosaurs and miscellaneous vertebrate and invertebrate fossils, petrified wood, coal seams and recent skeletons, watch out, here we come to lasso you! Stay tuned for future posts.