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Digging for Dinosaurs in the Hell Creek Formation

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The Fossil Trip:

After fossil hunting in the world-famous Hell Creek formation for dinosaurs a few years back, I got the dinosaur bug. I needed to find more dinosaur teeth and bones! To feed the need, I returned to dig with Walter Stein of Paleoadventures Dinosaur Digs this past summer in the Hell Creek Formation.

The Hell Creek Formation

The Hell Creek is one of the most famous dinosaur bearing formations in the world. It is a late Cretaceous formation that contains the KT boundary. This boundary marks the extinction of the dinosaurs and occurs near the contact between the Hell Creek and the overlaying Fort Union Group.

The Hell Creek runs for roughly 700 km from east to west (Kirk 2002), and is exposed in Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The thickness is around 100 m toward the western end and thins toward the east to about 50-60 m (Murphy et al, 1995). The eastern most part of the Hell Creek contains intermittent marine beds. These marine beds mark the shore of the Western Interior Seaway at the very end of the Cretaceous. Similar formations include the Lance formation in Wyoming and the Frenchman and Scollard Formations in Canada.

Tooth Draw Quarry: The Hunting Location

One of the sections that Walter Stein digs at is a typical lag deposit called Tooth Draw Quarry. It is a preserved river bed, complete with water worn pebbles and sand. Since it was a river system, it contains many fossils of fish, turtles, and crocodiles. However, it also contains dinosaur fossils. These dinosaur remains are almost always isolated bones and teeth that have tumbled down the river.

The Trip

On the previous trip with Walter I found a small nanotyrannus tooth, some nice triceratops teeth, and an edmontosaurus jaw section. This trip I was hoping to find a complete articulated juvenile T rex skeleton... however, I would settle for some more teeth and bones!

During the first day, Amy (my fossil hunting compadre) and I, excavated an area slightly west of tooth draw, called... wait for it... Tooth Draw West. Here I found a small T rex tooth, and a tiny edmontosaurus vertebra, and lots of other bones. The tooth, although small, had some interesting facet wear on it and looks nice im my collection!

For the next two days, we moved onto tooth draw and found a nice area to excavate. Here I found a broken raptor tooth, some more dinosaur bone pieces, including a small piece of a hadrosaur jaw, and also a long bone. The bone was long... it kept going... soon we realized it was a dinosaur rib. The rib snaked it's way into the formation, requiring lots of excavation work. For the rest of the trip we excavated the bone, which ended up being around 3 feet in length.

We ran out of time to jacket it, so kind Walter jacketed it for us, packed it up in an Indiana Jones type crate and shipped it to us. After receiving the jacket and prepping it, it turned out to be a beautiful 3 foot edmontosaurus dorsal rib, probably the 5th to 8th dorsel rib. It is broken at the tubercle and articular facet, so the head is mostly missing, and it looks like a small amount of the anterior section is also missing. But the rest of the fossil is in very beautiful shape and makes for a great specimen!

Checkout the prep sequence video below and images of the other fossils found during the trip!

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Fossils Found, more videos, and other pics from the Dinosaur Hunt

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If you want to go on a dig like this, check out Paleoadventures!

Paleoadventures Dinosaur Digs

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The Black Hills

If you decide to go digging with Paleoadventures, remember to spend a few extra days in the area. From a buffalo herd, historic Deadwood, the Black Hills institute, scenic hiking, horseback riding, needles road, to Mt. Rushmore and the Crazyhorse memorial, the Black Hills has a lot to offer!

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References

Johnson, Kirk R. Nichols , Douglas J., Hartman, Joseph H. 2002. "Hell Creek Formation: A 2001 synthesis", The Hell Creek Formation and the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary in the northern Great Plains: An Integrated continental record of the end of the Cretaceous, Joseph H. Hartman, Kirk R. Johnson, Douglas J. Nichols

Murphy, E.C., Nichols, D.J., Hoganson, J.W., and Forsman, N.F. 1995, The Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary in south-central North Dakota: North Dakota Geological Survey Report of Investigations 98, 74 p

Pearson, Dean A., Schaefer, Terry, Johnson, Kirk R., Nichols, Douglas J. Hunter, John P. 2002. "Vertebrate biostratigraphy of the Hell Creek formation in southwestern North Dakota and northwestern South Dakota." The Hell Creek Formation and the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary in the northern Great Plains: An Integrated continental record of the end of the Cretaceous, Joseph H. Hartman, Kirk R. Johnson, Douglas J. Nichols

Recommended Dinosaur Books and Educational Items:

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