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| The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.
If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living. |
Jules Henri Poincare' |
For several summers Southwestern Adventist University in collaboration with
Earth History Research Center has been conducting an on-going dinosaur
excavation and taphonomic research project in the Lance Formation of eastern
Wyoming.
Excavation, recovery, and preservation of the fossil remains is a
year-around endeavour involving teachers, students, and researchers.
The actual quarring is conducted on a private cattle ranch. The bones are
located in an extensive and rich bone bed containing the disarticulated
remains of several upper Cretaceous dinosaurs, primarily in decreasing order
of abundance:
- Edmontosaurus
- Triceratops
- Tyrannosaurus
The project is innovative in its use of digital techniques, including:
- The use of high-precision GPS (Global Positioning System) based surveying equipment to measure the locations of every fossil remain
- In-field digital photographs of every labeled and recovered bone, tooth, etc.
- Complete digital data measurement with subsequent transfer to a computer data base
- Internet access from the field with data transfer, news, photos, and web camera shots of the work
- The use of a GIS (Geographical Information System) to reconstruct the quarry in 3-dimensions
- A web-based catalog of all recovered remains.
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