Happy #WaybackWednesday ! Here's an awesome puzzle I found in 2006: Cap'n Chuck!

I found it in the upper Niobrara chalk in Logan County, KS on a very drizzly and cold October afternoon. One vertebra was sticking out. We returned the following spring to excavate.

LOOK AT AL THOSE BONES! OK, I'll give it to you, this is why field mapping in Kansas doesn't really work. We wait till we get back to the lab and map the prepared jackets.

Foamy the Rock Hammer for scale.

Obligatory boss-using-chainsaw-in-the-chalk for scale. Mike really refined the technique to slab out chalk specimens, but it takes specialized gear. It's much more gentle on the specimen than chipping out trenches for jacketing.

Later in the lab I started removing rock from the slab and... This is how it goes with Kansas material.

Once removed from the rock I started reassembling all the bones into a 3d mount. Here's the skull in progress. I also had a lot of fun fabricating and welding up the steel armature.

We did the entire skeleton, here temporarily on stands as the finished display is designed to be hung in its museum home.

And I think it turned out really well! Here's spousal human for scale, Cap'n Chuck is named after her father who can wait till 2021 before we come home for thanksgiving, thank you very much.

The skeleton is now on public display in a museum in Shanghai, China. Wish I could visit