Montana
Some people enjoy relaxing by the beach. Others prefer vacations in big cities. Personally, I have always most enjoyed spending my time off in nature. Whether that be at a national park or a local camp site, I have always found being in the wilderness to be therapeutic and relieving. One of my favorite locations to travel to is the badlands. There’s something about the desert that I find very relaxing. I jump at every opportunity to travel to new locations, so naturally when my cousin, Corey, approached me to pitch a trip to Montana I quickly agreed.
The Excavation
Corey proposed organizing a trip to Montana in order to volunteer with a paleontological dig sponsored by KU. The Hell Creek Formation of Montana is famous for its dinosaurs, including tricerotops, ankylosaurus, and pachycephalosaurus. Most famous and coveted of all, however, was the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The dig in question was operating at two distinct sites, one had excavated a number of T-Rex fossils and was in the final stages of the dig while the other was just starting to heat up. To complete our crew, we invited Corey’s brother Brian to come along.
Jordan, Montana
On June 12th we arrived in Jordan, Montana, having spent the previous night in Rapid City. Jordan was the stereotypical small farming community, with 2 small bars, a cafe, two motels and a heavily overpriced grocery store. Surprisingly, the food was actually quite good, with locally sourced beef being served at the bar. We met the leader of the KU dig, Doctor David Burnham, and a few other crew members.
Day One
The next day (Tuesday, June 13), we were finally ready to see the site and begin the excavation. We loaded up the trucks and began the 30 minute drive into Montana’s extensive BLM land to the location of the first excavation. Parking our vehicles and hiking a short distance to one of the buttes, it quickly became apparent just how vast the landscape was.
I like this picture because I feel that it is well balanced. It closely follows the rule of thirds, splitting the sky, background, and foreground into almost equal portions. The visual weight of the lunchbox is well balanced by the curve of the foreground into the bottom right corner.
We hiked our cooler and equipment up about 30 feet of steep, crumbling dirt and began to assess the excavation site.
I like the framing of this image, although the foreground seems a little busy.
The crew began the dig by looking near natural drainage routes. It was explained that rain water, which eroded exposed fossils at the top of the butte, would wash small bone fragments and other items of interest down the hill. Thus a good way to tell if there was bone to be found was to carefully inspect these drainage systems. We spent the better part of a morning combing through the dirt, finding tiny unidentifiable particles of bone. We would bag them up, save a waypoint on our GPS, and continue our hunt. Eventually we had exhausted most of the water ways and began the second part of the dig.
I need to work on my portraits a bit more. This one seems kind of fuzzy, and although the composition is pretty good the lighting is bad. Photography at mid day is really hard…
The next step was to start trying to unearth larger, more important bones. This process started when Fred, one of the leaders of the dig, found a 2 inch claw toward the top of the hill. The crew began digging at this level, slowly working their way inward. The process was as follows:
- Dig into hill, exposing a horizontal plane of dirt.
- Break apart the dirt with a knife, paying careful attention for any changes in coloration or texture, as this could indicate a fossil.
- If a fossil was found, begun brushing dirt off of it and excavate around it to remove it safely.
Doing this, the crew began to find lots of different fossils, including fibula (part of the leg), metatarsal (part of the foot), and phalanx. Soon speculation began about what kind of creature we were uncovering. After the discovery of the claw there was no doubt in the minds of the experts that we were uncovering a theropod, but it wasn’t until we unearthed a few small teeth that the idea of the site containing a juvenile tyannosaurid was first floated.
Brian watches as Dr. Burnham helps a few volunteers work at the dirt.
Through the power of forced perspective we can see what a T-Rex might look like during modern times.
I actually really like this image, although again the harsh mid day lighting really brings out the flaws in the image.
You may notice at this point that I haven’t used much first person when writing about digging. Although I was very interested in the dig, and I’ve always had a love for dinosaurs (who hasn’t?), I spent most of my time hiking and enjoying the landscape. And was there a lot of landscape to enjoy.
The view from the dig site. I like the composition of this panorama. The colors really pop, and the clouds balance out the bluff on the right hand side. It really does a good job of expressing how vast it feels when you’re out there.
Another well balance picture of a bluff. This one shows some more of the vegetation, as well as some incoming storm clouds.
After a few hours the storm clouds had moved in. This is a panorama shot while on the drive back to town. I love the cloud formations, and the slightly darker exposure really gives this picture the mood of a storm.
Corey in front of the rain clouds previously mentioned. This is a great picture.
While hiking, I discovered some really colorful rocks. They look pretty nice in a picture.
Day Two
The next day (Wednesday, June 14), we headed out towards the same site. Shortly before arriving, it began to rain. Due to the treacherous nature of the roads, it was decided that driving out to the site with the potential for large amounts of mud was not a good idea. We began to head back towards the town. After a pit stop to check some nearby bluffs for fossils was cut short by an irate land owner, we made for town and stayed in Jordan until the evening.
That night, we made our way out to the second site. This site had already been heavily excavated, and had yielded several good T-Rex fossils. The views from the bluff were excellent, and the coveted \"golden hour\" meant that there was no shortage of photographic opportunities.
The site of the excavation itself. Once again the Montana sky does a great job of making my pictures look good.
Dr Burnham’s dog, Beauford, looking majestic on the bluff.
A niifty close up of some of the tools being used during the excavation. I like the balance of this picture and the texture of the dirt.
Color is great, but sometimes the majesty of a landscape is best portrayed in grayscale.
The texture of the clouds and the sunlight eeking through in parts is what really makes this picture work.
As the sun set I tried to get a silhouette of the distant hill it sank behind.
A cool picture of the hill next to the T-Rex site. Although it’s basically the same angle I used for the grayscale image above.
Another sweet picture of the dell. This time I used a scraggly bush on the edge of the hill as the foreground. I have discovered that in order for a landscape to really work you need some kind of foreground. Without it, your eyes get lost in the vast space of the landscape and the end result is diminished.
# HDR
The sunset also gave me a great opportunity to take some HDR shots.
This is an HDR image composited from the photo used in the silhouette above. I’m not that happy with it, because I think that the foreground is distracting. Since the focus of this image is the sunset, I don’t think the HDR was really necessary as I find the silhouette the more compelling image.
This is a cool picture. It does a great job of showing the texture of the dirt and rock as well as the clouds. The sunset is barely visible behind some trees, and there is something in the foreground to give the viewer somewhere to look.
Overall, day two was not incredibly eventful. Although I do feel that it yielded some of my favorite photographs of the trip! This is likely due to the time of day I was able to shoot.
Day Three
On day three (Thursday, June 15), we returned to the same site we worked on Tuesday. This time, I spent most of my time hiking the bluffs and canyons.
This is the view from the top of the bluff we were digging at.
Shortly after arriving, I started a hike with Brian and Kenny, one of the KU staff members working with Dr Burnham. We hiked into a nearby gully and over a number of bluffs.
This is one of the rocks in the bottom of the canyon.
A close up of some of the cool textures in the sandstone.
We didn’t find any fossils on our hike, but there was a cow tooth at the bottom of the ravine.
We found lots of these iron based \"spheres.\" I am told they are called concretions. They make for a cool subject.
We returned to the dig site in time for lunch.
I really like this picture. Beauford really is photogenic.
This post is pretty saturated with landscapes and photos of bluffs, but I tried to take a couple different kinds of photos. There were some really pretty cactii near the dig site, and I’m pretty happy with the way their picture turned out.
I like how the flower hides with the grass and cactii.
I like how the bluff takes up most of the bottom of this image. It really helps create the illusion that the rocks are very tall. So often in images like this you lose perspective about how large objects are, but the framing of this picture really helps show the imposing size of the rocks.
The End
After a week in the field, it was finally time to come home. Although I am always sad to complete a trip, I’m thankful for all the great memories and experiences I have gained. This was truly a great experience.
Please check out the KU Natural History Museum’s facebook page to see more about the great stuff they do!
What’s next?
This week I was able to attend a vintage aircraft fly-in near Kansas City. I’m hoping to have a short post up soon with some of the images I took of the aircraft (some of my favorite subjects).