Dinosaur Bones!

I have been visiting places like the Bisti Badlands, the Den-Na-Zin Badlands, the Ojito Wilderness, and the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness Study Area regularly now since the early 90s. In recent years, my interest in these evocative landscapes--places with hoodoos and petrified forests and thousands of hidden surprises--has really increased. At this point, every few months I drag some lucky (hapless?) companion (usually Lisa) off to see one of these places. They are so easy to photograph and so unexpected. From a distance, they appear to be a gray blur--the last place you might hope to see something interesting. But on closer inspection, you find amazing color patterns and unbelievable rock formations and treasures in every corner. From my very first readings on these places back in the early 90s, I was aware that there were fossils in these places. My first reference on the subject was "The Sierra Club Guide to the Natural Areas of New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada." Back then, when I was still a cow-eyed Iowan who feasted on dreams of open spaces and exotic wilderness, I would read passages from this book like, "Petrified logs and dinosaur fossils record a more productive era" (regarding Bisti) and, "Petrified wood and fossils are abundant" (regarding De-Na-Zin). As someone who had never found even an arrowhead in a cornfield, I would ask myself, "If I went to one of these places, could I find a fossil?" Or better yet, "Could I find an actual dinosaur bone?" I would honestly fantasize about such things. I have since learned that famous dinosaur fossils have been found all over the San Juan Basin (e.g. the duck-billed dinosaur and a sub-species of T rex both at Bisti/De-Na-Zin and the one of the biggest dinos of all, the Seismosaurus in the Ojito Wilderness near Albuquerque).

Upon my first visits to Bisti/De-Na-Zin, it was obvious that I could at least find petrified wood. The stuff is everywhere. But still I have fantasized ever since about finding a dinosaur bone. Consider how the Ojito Seismosaurus was found: It was found by a couple of hikers just like me (a short account here and a 25 minute video here). If some other random hiker could stumble into something cool, why not me? Regarding the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah WSA, I am aware from some internet searches that there are ongoing dinosaur digs every year led by a Robert Sullivan, a paleontologist from Pennsylvania. From a paper of his and from the website of one of his proteges, I know that Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah has been a fertile fossil-hunting ground for everything from fish scales to turtles to numerous dinosaur bones. Of course from my own experience, I know that there is petrified wood everywhere.

One big problem I've got is that I have absolutely no fossil-hunting knowledge. I know that many fossils are simply bone fragments or badly weathered teeth, but I have no idea when a small fragment of rock is a fossil or just an ordinary rock. Every time I visit one of a badlands, my hiking companions have to listen to me endlessly wonder, "How do you know if these rocks are fossils? Is that a turtle? Are these really petrified wood or are they bone fragments? Are we standing on bone fragments right now and don't even know it?" I talk this way extensively throughout each visit ad nauseum no doubt to my companions' eye-rolling boredom. I'm always wondering, thinking about cool fossils, but aside from huge petrified tree trunks, I'm completely clueless. My only hope has been to find a bone, something that was large and obvious. I'm quite sure that the small, hard-to-ID stuff is all over, hidden in obvious plain site. Big bones, on the other hand, are not so obvious. My problem is that a big bone has always been my one true hope. It's a bit like playing the lottery. Winning a second ticket is not so hard. The odds aren't that bad. However, a big jackpot is so unlikely that it is essentially not a real possibility.

So here is my winning lottery ticket. We didn't just win another free ticket. Nor did we win a $110 million payload. It's probably more like a $100,000 jackpot. It's pretty good, but not good enough to quit my day job.

We spent all day this past Saturday at the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah WSA. Mostly, we went to take pictures and enjoy a good safe place to go camping with the dogs. We hiked about all day Saturday and got a handful of decent photos at sunset (to be posted later). At the end of the day, we had supper and decided we'd had a enough and that we'd pack up and go home first thing in the morning. When morning came, however, I had a change of heart and dragged the gang off for one last short hike into a previously unexplored section near our campsite. Since it was a short hike, we took very little water and just my camera. The great irony is that we didn't take the GPS. A GPS is often quite handy in these trackless badlands as a way to get back to your vehicle with minimal fuss, but for this hike, it seemed unnecessary. We were confident that we would be navigating a route out that would not be too difficult.

Twenty or 30 minutes into the hike, I was distracted by a couple of minor piles of petrified wood situated up above the wash in which we were walking. I guess petrified wood never gets old. Plus, who knows what you might find when you walk up to investigate the site? We climbed up about 10 feet above the wash to investigate. In this case, the petrified wood was not very interesting. As a result, we started wandering along the clay mounds looking for an easy route back into the wash when we walked right up to our great find. It is maybe 12 inches long with a large number of bone fragments scattered off on one side. It is maybe two inches wide at the widest point. It is a bone, without a doubt. It is made of rock. It's not an old cow bone. Is it a dinosaur bone? Damned if I know, but I hope to find out. Without a GPS to mark the spot, I'll have to rely on my pictures and memory to find that spot again. Luckily, I think it will be a very easy spot to re-find. The lay of the land in that area in now tattooed onto my brain.

First thing this morning, I contacted Robert Sullivan, the paleontologist from Pennsylvania who visits Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah each year. He wrote back and expressed an interest in seeing this specimen but not until his next visit nine months from now. He noted that it's a worthy specimen to visit, but it's a bit beat up. After that, I called the BLM office in Farmington, and spoke with the Sherrie Landon, the staff paleontologist at that office. She has expressed an interest in going out sometime soon to see the specimen in situ, as they say. Hopefully, we'll be able to organize another trip in the coming weeks. Naturally, I think this is really cool.

Here are the pix. I've doctored them a bit to make the bone stand out from soil. The soil is gray. The bones are also gray, but with a bit of a reddish-yellow cast. I emphasized the red in the pix to highlight the bones. Lisa's water bottle is 8 1/2 inches from top to bottom. Click on the pix to see them full-sized.