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The
team at work in the new theropod
pit
the day before the storm.
4/30
6:30am, Base Camp
You could
look directly at the sun this
morning and see through the dust
in the air that it is perfectly
round. The wind, in the aftermath
of yesterday's storm, no longer
seemed brutal, only calm and cold.
After a beautiful day on the 28th,
a wind whipped up during dinner.
By midnight it had transformed
into a full sand storm. The timing
of the storm couldn't have been
worse. After nearly a week of
fruitless prospecting, we have
just begun to work a rich site
that, with each turn of rock,
becomes more exciting.
Just before
dawn we awoke in the dark to the
soft sound of sand falling like
rain amidst the convulsing of
the tents and the gushing of the
wind. A knife of cold air cut
through the tent each time the
door flapped. Our sleeping bags
- and everything else in our tents
- were completely covered with
a thick layer of silt. This fine
dust ran into our eyes and mouths
when we opened them. One of the
sides of the "boys" tent came
undone altogether.
Andy
pulls one of the tent lines in
an attempt
to stabilize the tent against
the wind.
By morning
the storm had worsened. Before
breakfast we were all huddled
in the library, weather refugees.
We watched through square panes
of glass in the windows of the
library as the silhouettes of
the tall trees one-quarter mile
away faded into the whiteness
of the horizon.
Peering
out of the library during the
storm,
Gabe watches as even the horizon
disappears in the dust.
THE SITE…
The first days of work at the
"S1" site ("S" for Suhongtu) unearthed
parts of a skeleton of a small
theropod. But as we worked our
way across the base of the hill,
more bones began to appear - and
not just any bones, but complete
hands and feet. The blue-green
bone-bearing layers of the site
are sandwiched between layers
of brick red and mint green rock.
To follow the bones, we spent
time removing the face of the
hill and are in the process of
working our way across the hill,
pushing the edge of the site in
front of us as we go.
Paul
uses a magnifier to examine a
rock sample from the pit.
Although in
some places the rock is hard,
for the most part we are working
with sharp awls, hammers, dental
picks and brushes. In a few days,
as the boundaries of the site
become better defined and we begin
to carve the site into jackets,
we will shift to chisels, pickaxes
and shovels. In some ways, these
first few days at a site are the
most exciting. You don't know
what you are going to find; anyone
might find a bone at any time.
Each discovery adds a piece of
new information. One of the most
thrilling string of discoveries
so far took place when a radius
and ulna (forearm bones), stretched
one by one into thin, curved,
clawed fingers. A perfect theropod
hand, curled as if the animal
had just died. And at S1, with
each new bone, the plot of the
site thickens.
The
delicate, and perfectly complete,
three-fingered clawed hand of
the new theropod.
So yesterday,
in spite of the weather, we couldn't
help but wonder: Are there feet
at the end of the pair of legs
that seem to be crouching in the
ground? Are there any other articulated
hands and feet? What is preserved
in the center mound of hard, green
rock? How deep do the bones go
and how far into the hill will
we need to excavate? Are there
really two, long articulated tails,
or is there actually just one
tail that is curving? And what
kind of situation could have preserved
hands and feet in correct orientation
to the ground?
Zhao
(left) and Xiao Hong examine one
of Zhao's
newest finds - a tooth of a plant
eating dinosaur.
All of these
questions - and any further discoveries
at the site - were put on hold
by the weather.
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