220,000,000 Year Old Fossil

We were invited by Dr. Spencer Lucas, Curator of the New Mexico Natural History Museum to join a dig in northern New Mexico as they uncovered and field jacketed several 220,000,000 year old fossils. We were joined by three other volunteers. Randy, a Junior High language arts and English literature teacher from Albuquerque, Christoph and his daughter Nadine, both from Switzerland on sabbatical in Albuquerque. We were led by Larry Rinehart a field geologist with the museum.

Field jacketing is a unique process to safely transport the fossils from the field to the museum. The process begins with uncovering the fossil from the surrounding rocks. See Pamela in the first photo above and photo below.

Paper, burlap, and plaster create a safe jacket. The fossil is first web and telephone book pages are laid down and wet. Then plaster soaked burlap is laid on top of the paper.

Once the plaster is hard the jacket is labeled and the compass heading is added.

The jacket below was just started. Over the next several days they will add timbers and more plaster to help them lift the nearly ton of rock and fossil.

Dental tools, tweezers, and superglue, some the the tools of geologist.

We had a great time, learned alot, and want to thank everyone for making this a special day. -L

Update: After five attempts to have the photos post correctly, I think they work now, -L