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The story of our #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS Triceratops started in 2018, @ROMToronto started a 5-year project to survey Hell Creek Fm in Montana to learn more about the mass extinction that killed off the non-bird dinosaurs, along with so many other organisms 66 million years ago.
The area we were searching is in Garfield County, MT near Snow Creek- only ~1 mile from where Barnum Brown from the @AMNH collected the first named specimen of Tyrannosaurus rex in 1902! I was lucky enough to visit the site & take vital stratigraphy data #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS
On the SECOND LAST DAY of our first field season, paleo-artist extraordinaire Danielle Dufault @MesozoicMuse, who was prospecting w @ashionyx, found this HUGE rounded ball of bone sticking out of the rock in the badlands. #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS
It turned out to be an occipital condyle, of the knob at the back of the skull that connects the head to the neck, of a massive Triceratops, an incredible find! Art by @MesozoicMuse too #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS
Danielle @MesozoicMuse is a TOP paleo-artist. She is incredibly talented, knowledgeable & dedicated & I am lucky to have her as my research assistant at @ROMToronto. You can read an AWESEOME interview about her career here: https://interactive.wttw.com/prehistoric-road-trip/detours/how-to-draw-a-dinosaur-an-interview-with-a-paleoartist #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS
There was some frill sticking out too, but no horns. It was pretty hard to tell just how much was there or the orientation of the skull based on what we had at the surface. But there was not time left to dig it up. #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS
So, with the help of postdoc @VictoriaArbour and phd student Jade Simon @oisforoviraptor, we put a plaster cap or “winter jacket” over the fossil. We’d have to wait a whole year to find out exactly what was there . #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS
Over the winter, we learned about #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS and chatted with Emily. We invited her out help us dig up Danielle’s Triceratops. Thanks to paleoecologist and lab alum @cullen_thomas for connecting us. It turned out better than we could have ever imagined.
We started digging up Danielle’s Triceratops in July 2019, and had only 2 days to remove the overburden (the non-fossiliferous rock above the specimen) and open up the site. #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS
Then the fateful day came-we had only 1 DAY to film w @Ehmee & #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS. It was the 1st day we were digging into to the site beyond what we already knew was there- the condyle are some hard to decipher chunks of frill. We still needed the horns and face...
In the first hour, @eebtoronto PhD student in my lab Ryan Wilkinson struck lucky first- he started to uncover a MASSIVE brow horn plunging straight down into the rock. This horn is bigger than a baseball bat around. Great job Ryan! #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS
Shortly after, ROM head technician Ian Morrison @ianmo222 found the upper jaw while he was working near the condyle. That was the A-HA moment- we had WHOLE SKULL- it was just upside down!!! #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS
Then we were off to the races to uncover the nose horn & snout. Because we now knew the orientation, we could let @Ehmee uncover these key parts of the skull, on camera for #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS. We could not have planned a better day. UNBELIEVABLE. You can’t make it up better.
Our Triceratops skull. We could not have been more elated. I will remember it for the rest of my life & tell all my students about that incredible day. A classic serendipitous field story. What a ride. #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS
Then came the BIG task of taking this skull out of the ground. Triceratops has the largest head of any dino-over 7 feet long! Our team dug for the next 2 weeks. Expert tech Ian Morrison @ianm222 and Ryan W flipped the skull & pulled it out of the quarry #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS
Digging dinosaurs is hard work. I want to shout out to my amazing team here @ROMToronto @eebtoronto - without them our Hell Creek Project couldn’t happen. @DoubleBeam & @MesozoicMuse are featured in this great #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS Detour: https://interactive.wttw.com/prehistoric-road-trip/detours/meet-the-rock-stars-of-paleontology-and-geology
HUGE thanks to @Ehmee and the #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS team for being a part of our field research. Stay tuned on @ROMtoronto @UofT_Palaeo social media and check out #ROMHellCreek for updates along the way.
Last but not least, special thanks to my good friends @gpwilson11 & @ucmpberkeley’s Mark Goodwin for their help w our dig, logistics, and sharing their encyclopedic knowledge of the Hell Creek with me and my @ROMToronto crew. Lots more research to come. #PrehistoricRoadTripPBS
