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		Nature Conservancy Magazine: Summer 2008 Nature Conservancy Magazine Flora & Fauna Jurassic Beach Growth Potential Subscribe Previous Issues

Go Deeper The Nature Conservancy in Montana The Nature Conservancy has worked with Montana landowners and communities since 1979 to conserve almost 500,000 acres of important ranchland and wildlife habitat. The Author A 22-year member of The Nature Conservancy, Pat Callaway has traveled to see and photograph gorillas in Rwanda, iguanas in the Galapagos Islands and penguins in Antarctica. Now retired, she lives in Newark, California. This is her first published essay. Submit Your Story Learn how to submit your Human Nature story.

Human Nature: Past Life
A Brush with Extinction

By Pat Callaway
 

Iwent to Montana one summer. But not just to Montana. I went back in time. Far beyond the days of the Wild West. Far beyond the days of the first Indian settlers who are thought to have migrated from Mongolia down the old North Trail from Alaska. I went back in time millions of years. Not through a time machine, but little by little, carefully scraping away at the earth with an ice pick and a brush.

Nearly 80 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period, dinosaurs roamed among the conifers. It is thought that these creatures were wiped out locally by volcanic eruptions, the intense heat leaving only the dinosaurs’ bones to be scattered around later by mudslides.

In the late 1970s, paleontologist Jack Horner discovered one of the world’s largest dinosaur beds here in the badlands of Montana. He also discovered a nest of dinosaur eggs and the first-ever nest of fossilized fledglings.

Now I’m here, at the Conservancy’s Pine Butte Guest Ranch, along with 10 other aspiring paleontologists, hoping to make discoveries of our own. It’s day four of a weeklong summer camp for adults ready to pick and scrape under the watchful eye of Karen Chin, a bona fide paleontologist (and Horner disciple) at the University of Colorado.

At the dig site, owned by the Museum of the Rockies, our work area consists of two adjacent plots, totaling 125 square feet. I claim my coveted piece of earth and kneel down.

To the untrained eye, it is difficult to distinguish a fragment of dinosaur bone from a clump of dirt or a piece of rock or calcite. Calcite, the purveyor of good and bad news, forms around both bones and rocks and brings the anticipation of discovery every time I strike it. I pick and brush, pick and brush, being careful to keep the area clean and level. “Is this a bone?” I ask over and over again. The answer is always, “No.”

We break for lunch. A Townsend’s solitaire flies overhead. The area is teeming with wildlife such as white-tailed deer, pronghorn antelope and prairie falcon. Grizzlies are careful to hide their presence. Coyotes howl in the distance. A Richardson’s ground squirrel soaks up the last bit of sun before hibernating through the winter.

Then, back to work. I pick and brush, pick and brush, wondering if this is a futile effort. Again, I strike something hard. It feels different. I carefully brush away the soil.

This is it. I can tell. This is not Jurassic Park; this is not a myth; this is not a rock. This is the real thing.

I call to Karen, who confirms the finding. It might even be a rare find, part of a skull. I carefully pick around the bone. It’s not a skull. It’s only an ischium, a fragment of hip bone. But as I excavate, I discover a femur (leg bone)—the largest bone we’ve found so far (1.8 feet long)—and then an ulna (arm bone). The thrill of discovering real dinosaur bones—of touching fossils that have not seen the light of day in millions of years, that have never been touched by human hands—is incredible.

We dig a trench around the trio of bones. I dunk strips of burlap in plaster and carefully lay them over a thin layer of paper covering the bones so they can be extracted and sent to the museum. On the last day, our group sends 16 bones to the museum in Bozeman. It occurs to me that my encounter with the remnants of an extinct species brings it back only in my imagination. I reflect upon my travels and realize more than ever what a privilege it is to encounter the world’s amazing flora and fauna concurrent with their existence. I want to do what I can to protect them.

The weather is chilly today. Strong winds often blow through this part of the badlands, where, earlier this season, researchers housed themselves in windproof tepees. The bare poles of the tepees, now stripped of their protective skins until next season, stand in symbolic tribute to the prized bones that lie beneath.  

Pictures (top tpo bottom): Illustration © Stan Fellows: Photo courtesy Pat Callaway