Colorado Dinosaur Dig (2001 Archives)
COLORADO DINOSAUR DIG
The Mt. Blanco Fossil Team, under the direction of Carl E. Baugh and the Creation Evidence Museum of Glen Rose, Texas, has worked at excavating a major Dinosaur graveyard in Northwest Colorado for several years. The site, located on a private ranch, has yielded the remains of at least ten different kinds of dinosaurs and other animals, and is part of the Morrison Formation of the Jurassic group. This is an ongoing excavation. Work here has been happening twice annually since 1995. The bonebed is far from exhausted. The actual excavation is in the right center part of this photo in a rock outcroping on the side of the mountain.
The basic camp for the excavators is about a mile way from the actual dig site.
A large backhoe operated by expert, Corky Underwood, removed a great amount of the excess overburden from the dig site
Site photographer Burton Stokes flanked by survey equipment takes video of one part of the dig while multiple bone fragments were being unearthed. Dave Babbit (right, kneeling) is the site surveyor who has been responsible for mapping out the grid patterns that help document the placement of the bones.
Probably some leg bones of a smaller dinosaur from the same location as the photo above.
Laura DeFord of Creation Evidence Museum works on a site mapping table for one grid section of the dig.
Mt Blanco associate director, Don Ensign drawing a map on the grids that shows the location of the dinosaur bones.
This is part of the bone grid map of one part of the dig site.
Left:Joe Taylor (center) and Terry Beh (right) are removing the pedestal beneath a large field jacket containing several bones. The strenous excavation process is a distinct change of pace from Terry’s normal routine as a freelance writer. This site has been visited by a number of interesting individuals from various scientific and scholarly fields.
Taylor using a brush and a small air powered “Chicago” pnuematic chisel to uncover details of a bone to determine what it is and which direction to excavate around it.
Mrs. Belinda LaCoste, whose family owns the ranch property is shown working on some large mysterious dinosaur bones.
May 2001 – Left: Don Yaeger, Pete DeRosa, Dave Hall and Peter DeRosa work one sauropod shoulder blade that’s about five feet long! (This was the DeRosas’ first dinosaur dig.)
Three visiting NASA scientists hoist the casts of our Diplodocus leg into life position for a snapshot.
The casts are resting on part of a large petrified tree trunk which the Creation Evidence Team excavated from 100 feet above our site. The tree is petrified, BUT its bark isn’t. The first C14 tests we received said the bark was 5,000 years old. We think this is one Carbon date that is probably right.
Article and photos copyright Mt. Blanco, originally published 2001. Re-posted August 2015
*Mt. Blanco Archives: Because of the many changes since Mt. Blanco opened in 1998, we are re-posting many of the old updates, articles, etc. that were originally on our website. Some of the information may be out of date, but each of our archived articles are an important part of Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum’s history.
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