Paleontologists dig for Jurassic dinosaur fossils

[MUSIC]

[People swing pickaxes into the side of a steep escarpment.]

MARK NORELL (Curator, Division of Paleontology): The basic way that we extract fossils from the ground-

[People excavating fossils with brushes, on hillside.]

NORELL: -is just like Barnum Brown did when he was tearing around here and stuff in the 1890s.

[A historical photo appears, of excavators building an armature around a large, jacketed fossil.]

NORELL: He'd dig around, and he'd cover them with plaster. He'd roll them over-

[A historical photo appears, of excavators lifting a large jacket with a rope-and-pully system.]

NORELL: -cover ‘em with plaster, and then bring the whole thing home.

[A historical photo appears, of people loading fossil crates from horse-drawn wagons onto cars of the Union Pacific Railroad. Mark Norell appears on screen, speaking to camera. Text appears: Mark Norell, Curator-in-Charge, Division of Paleontology]

NORELL: Some other things have changed though. One is that we don't have to use horse plows anymore because we have jackhammers.

[NORELL using a jackhammer to drill into rock.]

[NORELL appears on screen, speaking to camera.]

NORELL: We can't use dynamite anymore, which I wish we could.

[CHUCKLING]

[MUSIC]

[A title that reads “Back to the Jurassic Part 1: The Field” appears over footage of paleontologists excavating on a steep slope with blue sky in the background.]

NORELL: The Morrison Formation-

[A topographical map appears, showing North America from southern Canada to central Mexico with the outlines of individual states and provinces.]

NORELL: -is one of the most iconic formations within paleontology-

[A title reading Morrison Formation labels an area on the topographical map, from very southern Canada to central New Mexico, as well as from central Utah to central Kansas.]

NORELL: -because it represents an interval of time in the late Jurassic Period about 140 million years ago.

[NORELL appears on camera.]

NORELL: But also what's so important about the Morrison Formation in general-

[A newspaper from 1898 appears, with the headline “Duel of Giants: Finish Fight Between Forty Ton Dinosaurs”.]

NORELL: -is that it's the place where the first great dinosaur discoveries were made-

[A newspaper from 1916 appears, with the headline “New Finds in the Greatest Fossil Dinosaur…: American Museum Expedition in Six Years of Labor Has Unearthed Greatest Collection of Prehistoric Monsters in the World.”]

NORELL: -in North America during the big dinosaur rush -

[A historical newspaper appears, with the headline “Most Colossal Animal Ever on Earth Just Found Out West.”]

NORELL: -of the late 19th century. The dinosaurs from the Morrison Formation became- [NORELL appears on camera.]

NORELL: -probably the best-known dinosaurs in the world.

[A black-and-white photograph of a fully articulated Stegosaurus fossil skeleton appears.]

NORELL: So all these familiar names, like Stegosaurus and-

[A black-and-white photograph of a fully articulated Brontosaurus fossil skeleton appears.]

NORELL: -Brontosaurus and Allosaurus were all-

[A black-and-white photograph of a fully articulated Allosaurus fossil skeleton appears.]

NORELL: -found first in the Morrison formation.

[A black-and-white photograph appears, of men wheeling an articulated fossil dinosaur tail on a large cart, across the stone yard of the American Museum.]

NORELL: When the early dinosaur hunters came out,

[A black-and-white photograph appears, of men assembling the fossilized bones of a duck-billed dinosaur, surrounded by wooden scaffolding.]

NORELL: -they dismissed a lot of the smaller animals because they were looking for big animals to fill their-

[A black-and-white photograph of a group of kids surrounding dinosaur skeletons on display.]

NORELL: -dinosaur halls. And that's one of the reasons that we started this excavation-

[Aerial footage shows paleontologists excavating on a shelf of a hillside, under tents.]

NORELL: -is to try to fill in the picture-

[Hands in pink gloves brush sand from one area of sediment.]

NORELL: -by looking at the stuff that was ignored by all the early collections.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NORELL: Because it is so large,-

[A title reading Morrison Formation labels the same area previously seen on the topographical map, from very southern Canada to central New Mexico, as well as from central Utah to central Kansas. The states of the U. S. A. are also labeled.]

NORELL: -thousands and thousands of square miles, the Morrison Formation-

[Aerial photography shows bands of soil that are part of the Morrison Formation.]

NORELL: -is probably more than one thing, but what really needs to be looked at now is a site-by-site basis to see how all of these-

[Aerial photography shows paleontologists excavating under a tent in a field with tufts of sagebrush.]

NORELL: -fit in together to see if there's any north-south, or even east-west-

[Aerial footage shows paleontologists at a field site.]

NORELL: -differences among these different faunas-

[footage of paleontologists jacketing a fossil from a shallow hole in the ground]

NORELL: -to have a better understanding of the evolution of these animals during the Jurassic Period-

[Aerial footage shows paleontologists excavating on a shelf of a hillside, under tents.]

NORELL: -in this part of the world.

[Hands use a hammer and chisel to excavate a fossil.]

NORELL: Well, this is actually a pretty typical site I would say for the Morrison-

[camera tilts down as paleontologist looks at rock where they are brushing away material]

NORELL: -in the sense that it's a combination of sand, and then like heavily like-

[NORELL jackhammering rock with another paleontologist hoeing away material]

NORELL: -what we call indurated which basically it just means glued-together sandstones.

[NORELL appears on camera]

NORELL: And we think that these animals that they died, and they were either deposited in one of two ways—that they either died and floated into rivers-

[aerial footage of NORELL and two other paleontologists removing sediment around a fossil]

NORELL: -and then they got hung up or that they're in what we call over-bank deposits and that's-

[NORELL picking up piece of rock and tossing it aside]

NORELL: -in areas where the river would flood and then go out onto a floodplain and then cover animals. So these sediments right here, these are really silty.

[NORELL and other paleontologist’s running dirt through fingers]

NORELL: -So they have a lot of clay in them.

[camera travels upward to show NORELL speaking.]

NORELL: So this was a over-bank deposit, very near to the bank upstream.

[paleontologist prospecting on sandy hillside, camera pans up hill to show other paleontologists at work]

NORELL: It speaks to the kind of preservation that we have here. Rarely do we find a wholly articulated animal. The bones are kind of like here and there, mismatched. Occasionally, you'll find some vertebrae together and things like that. One of the animals that we were excavating-

[paleontologists brushing and using fine tools to remove sediment from vertebral sequence]

NORELL: -today, that it's a vertebral sequence of what we think of right now as a camarasaurid, not a full-size one but a juvenile.

[NORELL appears on camera]

NORELL: And we found theropod teeth around it, and that's usually a sign that things were scavenging this dead carcass after the animal perished.

[shot of a sandy hillside with three paleontologists standing, excavating materials with hoes and shovels]

NORELL: There's a lot of bones. And we just have to figure out which ones are the most scientifically important.

[NORELL seated, excavating near other paleontologists who are working under a tarp.]

NORELL: When I come out here and stuff, it's not just to find new dinosaur species and describe them. I'm really-

[NORELL appears on camera]

NORELL: -a biologist who works on fossils, and I'm more interested in a lot of the biological questions.

[Carl Mehling unlocks specimen cabinet]

CARL MEHLING (Senior Museum Specialist, Division of Paleontology): One of the most important things that we found is a-

[hands opening cabinet and pulling out tray with fossil skull]

MEHLING: -diplodocid skull. So it's a long-necked dinosaur skull, and they're-

[shot of prepared fossil skull on tray in cabinet]

MEHLING: -very rare. They're very fragile.

[MEHLING appears on camera; Text appears: Carl Mehling, Senior Museum Specialist, Division of Paleontology]

MEHLING: Although the bones have shifted a bit, it seems to be complete and it has a beautiful braincase, which is, of the entire skull, the most important part of that body part.

[NORELL appears on camera]

NORELL: We're going to have a much better understanding of what the brains looked like in these animals.

[photo of prepared fossilized skull]

NORELL: We're going to have a lot better understanding of whether or not they had beaks.

MEHLING: It's an extremely important and exciting specimen that we're probably going to wind up-

[MEHLING appears on camera]

MEHLING: -CT scanning and imaging soon, because it's so fragile it can't even be removed from the rock safely.

[NORELL appears on camera]

NORELL: Recently, we found some beautiful, what are called Sphenodontians, but they're-

[footage of a small lizard in leaf litter]

NORELL: -relatives of the tuatara which only lives in New Zealand today. Also-

[NORELL appears on camera]

NORELL: -very early mammals are found in some of these beds as well.

[aerial footage of Norell walking by excavation site, near tarp and jacketed fossil]

NORELL: It gives us one of the best pictures of the origin of a lot of the major-

[footage of tree frog walking along thin branch]

NORELL: -animal groups, be they frogs, be they-

[footage of a lung fish swimming]

NORELL: -lungfish, be they, ah,

[footage of a lizard tilting head]

NORELL: -lizards. We're not really-

[Carl Mehling excavating with a brush]

NORELL: -intent on putting a lot of these things on display. Our goal is to be able to do some really great science on them, so-

[NORELL appears on screen]

NORELL: the way in which that we prepare them in the laboratory is very different than how you would prepare them just to put the mount on display.

[preparator sawing open a fossil jacket in laboratory]

NORELL: Soft tissue is present in a lot of dinosaur fossils.

[preparator lifts cap off jacket, exposing sediment]

NORELL: Sadly that wasn't recognized until maybe 10 years ago.

[preparator using fingers to handle sediment from jacket]

NORELL: So a lot of these things were just-

[NORELL appears on camera]

NORELL: -prepared away back in the museums and things because people just thought that they were plants or just discolorations. But certainly we've learned a lot now, and-

[photo of fossilized skin impressions, with label from Morrison Formation]

NORELL: -there are things like skin imprints. There's other sorts of things that we're only beginning to be able to understand.

[MEHLING appears on camera]

MEHLING: It may seem like we've been doing paleontology for a long time, but we really have just begun.

[MEHLING prospecting along Morrison Formation]

MEHLING: And there's so much that we don't know about the history of life, any time we go out, it's new discoveries. Without a doubt. It's just an automatic part of what we do.

[paleontologist excavating with hammer and chisel under a tarp]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NORELL: It's really hard to consider a successful expedition all the time-

[three paleontologists crouched on hillside, excavating rock]

NORELL: -you're doing it, even for a few years afterwards. Nevertheless, we hope that we're able to generate a lot of interest-

[looking downhill at two paleontologists excavating]

NORELL: -from other scientists as well as our own students and colleagues-

[close up on paleontologist, camera pans down to her carving soil with knife]

NORELL: -to be able to weave it into the bigger story of the Morrison Formation as a whole.

I think this might be a bone,-

[NORELL on camera; camera pans down to him pointing with tip of chisel]

NORELL: -like a surface, this rounded thing here. So if it is, this could be a theropod metatarsal.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[NORELL continues to chisel at rock]
 

[Credits roll:

The Constantine S. Niarchos Expedition featured here was generously supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
 

Written, Directed and Produced by

Kate Walker

Field Produced by

Lee Stevens
 

Edited by

Ben Tudhope

Camera

Lee Stevens

Title Graphics

Shay Krasinski

Drone Operators

Erik Deitesfeld

Denis Finnin

Steve Sutter

Archive:

A. Anderson/© AMNH

Chronicling America, Library of Congress

C. Coles/© AMNH

R. Dahlgren/© AMNH

M. Ellison/© AMNH

C. Mehling/© AMNH

H. Menke/© AMNH

North American Land Change Monitoring System, USGS

A. Thomson/© AMNH

J. Wheelock/© AMNH

Music:

“Expressive Design” by Leigh Frankley (PRS)/Warner Chappell Production Music

This video was produced for Seminars on Science.

learn.amnh.org]