Est. June 3, 1961
Experience Life
Three Billion Years In The Making April 2017
From the Director
Raptor Review
Issue 46
A quarterly publication for your information and enjoyment
By Dr. Ken Carpenter
Two new exhibits opened since the last newsletter. One briefly discusses geologic time so that visitors have a better understanding about how we know the oldest rocks in Utah are 2.7 billion years old, or that the dinosaurs from the Cleveland-Lloyd dinosaur quarry are 150 million years old. The second newly installed exhibit features the oldest fossils in Utah (766 million years old) and briefly discusses the controversial topic on the origin of life. Work has started on an exhibit featuring the sail-back reptile Dimetrodon and railing exhibits on the Cleveland-Lloyd dinosaurs. The museum recently installed an interactive game called Scarab Hunt. Using a free app from ITunes and Google Play, players locate beacons with their smart phones and then answer questions about the exhibit. Developing questions and answers was a team effort by the museum staff. We will continue to develop the game over the next few months. Come in and give it a try! Screen shot of the new game, This year’s “Cocktails with called Scarab Hunt. Curators” for our premier members at the Allosaurus and Utahraptor levels, will probably occur in September. I will talk about my experimental work on how bones get buried and fossilized – yes, I have artificially fossilized bone. If this sounds interesting, I hope you will consider raising your membership to the premier level so that you can join us.
Last year we had a donation of some weird 298 millionyear-old shark teeth that look like artichoke leaves. In researching these teeth, I discovered that they are the first reported discovery for the state. This shark, called Petalodus, was first described in 1838 and the location of the original specimen has been lost for 170 years. With a bit of dogged sleuthing and many emails later, I managed to relocate the specimen in a small museum in Switzerland! I have completed a short manuscript on the Utah teeth with Linn Ottinger, who used to run the rock shop at the north end of Moab and who found the teeth. They will be featured in an exhibit on horn corals and other fossils from the Honaker Trail Formation. Thank you Linn! Finally, I am sad to report that the museum’s first museum director, Don Burge, is currently in the Pinnacle Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. It was Don’s vision that got this museum started back in 1961. We wish you the best, Don. I thank all of you for your membership and support of the museum. Watch for all the great changes coming in 2017!
Breaking news: Burning of the pithouse.
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Castle Country Cultures By Dr. Tim Riley
Greetings from the Hall of Archaeology! After the coldest and longest winter in my five years here in Castle Country, I am ready to get back out into the field in these coming months. We have some exciting archaeological projects planned for the season. The spring season will focus on wrapping up the excavation at the Martinez Pithouse site out by East Carbon. This Fremont home has been an interesting excavation, yielding lots of information on the architecture and construction of the structure. This final season will focus on exposing more of the bright red floor and exploring the associated rubble mound. In the fall, we will be working at the Cottonwood Village site out in Nine Mile Canyon with several partner organizations and volunteers from our communities. The summer season is still up in the air, so check back here in the next newsletter for an update. In the Hall, we are hard at work on our Ancestral Puebloan exhibit. We were able to secure artifacts from the site we are replicating, Five Kiva Ruin, from the Edge of the Cedars State Park in Blanding. It will be a great experience to see artifacts made and used by the residents of this community in conjunction with the room block and scale diorama. Thanks again to Edge of the Cedar’s Curator of Collections, Jonathan Till, for his great help in this endeavor. Check out the Artifact of the Quarter for a sneak preview. Prehistory Week will take place May 6th-13th. We would love to see our members among the crowd at our Family Day activities. We will also have a public lecture earlier in the week focused on the archaeology of the Bears Ear National Monument. This area has thousands of archaeological sites, many with standing architecture and incredible preservation of perishable materials like baskets and sandals. Come find out what all the fuss is all about.
Artifact of the Quarter This beautiful sherd is one of the artifacts from the Five Kiva Ruin on loan from the Edge of the Cedars. This is a great example of a style known as Mancos Gray, made between AD 850-975. This piece of pottery predates most of the architecture at the site and confirms an earlier occupation of the rockshelter during the Pueblo I period.
This piece of a Mancos Gray jar was recovered from the Five Kiva Ruin near Blanding, UT.
Events & Information By Shailetia Reiswig
Winter is finally over and spring is here! Remember to keep an eye out for updates and notices about our upcoming events like Family Day and special Members Only events like the exciting new gallery openings. I send via post and email, so if you have not received an email and would like to, please contact me to update your information by phone 435.613.5755 or email at shai.reiswig@usu.edu
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Prehistoric Museum Upcoming Events The Lost Tracks: A Journey of Discovery Photographic exhibition by Andre Delgalvis Open: March 4 – May 27, 2017 Armored Dinosaur exhibit Opens: June 10 – October 28, 2017
Family Day at the Prehistoric Museum May 13, 2017 • 10AM to 2PM 155 East Main Street • Price
Family activities for all ages! SPONSORED BY The Prehistoric Museum
Secrets from the Vault by Katy Corneli
Springtime has arrived in Price and we can feel it even here in the deep dark catacombs of collections storage. The last of the snow from our big storm has finally melted and it is time for change, growth, and, of course, spring cleaning!
Cleaning and organization is a year round event here in the museum but I recently decided to switch gears and work on something a little different. If I say “fossil” you may think “dinosaur” or “big” or just “really, really old.” Of course fossils come in all shapes and sizes and I recently took a break from hauling around huge bones to admire (and catalog) some very different specimens. Several years ago the Prehistoric Museum acquired a rather large collection of mammal teeth fossils from the North Horn An assortment of mammal teeth formation. Each waiting to be catalogued. Metooth was beautichanical pencil for scale. fully mounted on the end of a pin within a glass vial but they needed to be
catalogued, tagged, and organized. As I went through them I learned about some amazing little mammals that existed alongside the dinosaurs!
Early mammals are often known only from their teeth, which are exceptionally durable due to their hard enamel coating. Unfortunately most of the teeth in this collection cannot be identified down to the species level but we know many of them belonged to a type Multituberculate pre-molar from of mammal called the collection. “multituberculates,” so named because their cheek teeth were long and narrow with multiple cusps, or “tubercules.” These little squirrel-like mammals comprised at least 200 species and lasted for around 165 million years, longer than any other mammal group. Unfortunately they are also the only major branch of mammals to have become totally extinct, with no living descendents. The first multituberculates emerged during the Jurassic Period! They then survived the K-Pg (K-T) extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous and thrived during the Paleocene Epoch. In fact, multituberculates only vanished around 35 million years ago at the end of the The Paleocene squirrel-like Eocene. The reasons Ptilodus, From Prothero, D. R., & for their decline are Willimas, M. P., (2017) The Princnot fully understood eton feild guide to prehistoric mammals, p. 30. but they may have been out-competed by rodents and early primates. Though I will never see a little Ptilodus or his relatives out enjoying the sunshine, learning about them has changed the way I think about ancient life. I hope next time you imagine a Triceratops trundling through the trees you might also picture a small furry mammal staring down at her from the branches.
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Gift Shop
By Jennifer Shorthill
Ahhhh!! Spring has sprung, flowers are blooming and birds are singing! This time of the year is so wonderful! We are so excited to have many more of our faithful patrons and visitors, from all over the world, come and visit us!! We love to see the excitement on your faces, as you explore the beautiful treasures our museum holds! The clerks, in the gift shop, are friendly and are here to help you in any way they can. Come and say hello! We have some new products for the season and more on the way! Come by and check us out for all your gift giving needs and some memorable gifts for yourself! Don't forget to stop in and see the incredible work of Andre Delgalvis. His book, The lost Tracks, is for sale in our gift shop. It's amazing! Put your shoes on, throw your duffle bag in the car and get exploring this beautiful state of ours, including our incredible Prehistoric Museum, here in Price, Utah! Can you dig it? We thank you for your patronage.
The Lost Tracks, a new book by Andre Delgalvis.
New Jewerly in the Gift Shop. Stop in for all you gift needs.
New toys in the Gift Shop. This mind game is guaranteed to keep kids of all ages entertained.
Exhibits
by Sandra Budd
Hello museum members. Our special exhibits gallery kicks off this March with The Lost Tracks exhibition that runs through May 27. This exhibit highlights selected photography images from Andre Delgavis documentary book The Lost Tracks - A Journey of Discovery. Delgalvis began finding dinosaur tracks at Lake Powell in 2003. Since that time he has been involved in discovering and documenting fossilized footprints and other ancient traces. The exhibition is accompanied by a selection of tracks from the museum’s collection. Image from “The Lost Tracks” June-November 2017 the Exhibit special exhibits gallery will host an armored dinosaur exhibit produced by Gaston Design. This exhibit will feature a broad range of animals with unusual body armor from the familiar Triceratops to a less familiar 6-foot-long Eurypterid (Sea Scorpion). Many smaller species will be represented from present to past to tell the story of defense and display. The highlight of the exhibit will be a 30-foot-long crocodile Giant Eurypterid from the cretaceous period. The exhibit will surely impress young and old alike. Please contact me regarding any exhibits. Sandra.budd@usu.edu or 435.613.5760.
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I see dead things.... by Dave Alderks
For the past several months I have been working on the Dimetrodon bringing it to life by making it a three-dimensional model. This has been a fun and challenging project. It started with taking the original wall hanging skeleton and removing excess material from the
Dimetrodon being prepped for weight loss surgery.
skeleton. Around this time I named the skeleton Alex. This name was choosen since I am not sure if it is a he or a she. Then it was on to some minor reconstructive surgery.
Skeleton after excess material was removed.
Reconstructive surgery was a slow process that started on a Monday with the casting of limb bones, and making molds for the left side of the pelvis and scapula. Once the casting and sculpting was complete, I started casting the ribs. With the easy part of reconstructive surgery complete, I started on the reconstructing the vertebral column. First I added structural support in the form of a metal rod along the spine, and then cast the other side of the vertebrae, and started to glue the halves together.
Reconstructed limb bones for the Dimetrodon.
The main body of the Dimetrodon was mounted so that the limbs and hands could be placed in their proper walking position and the head was reattached to the body. At this point the skeleton was a technicolor coat of pink, white, yellow, and gray. This would not Dimetrodon in it’s case waiting for the rest of do, so I the exhibit. added several layers of paint to give the skeleton a more natural look. Having finished the skeleton, Alex was then moved back into it’s case, along with a Dimetrodon trackway. Now it is time to collect the rest of the specimens for the case. Upcoming Field Schedule: April 1-8 Trilobites May 1-5 Prospecting the San Rafael River in the San Rafael Swell May 22-27 Prospecting in the San Rafael Swell June 5-10 Uinta Basin Collecting Mammals and Turtles July 10-14, 17-21 Ichthyosaur collecting North of Vernal If you would like to participate in field work or volunteer at the museum on the Paleontology side you can contact me at dave.alderks@usu.edu or call and leave a message at 435.613.5756. No previous experience needed, training will be provided.
Prehistoric Museum 155 East Main Street Price, Utah 84501 Visit us on the web at usueastern.edu/museum Local (435) 613-5060 Toll Free (800) 817-9949
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Inside This Edition Item
Editor/Layout Page
From The Director Cover Castle Country Cultures 2 Events & Info 2 Secrets from the Vault 3 Gift Shop 4 Exhibits 4 I see dead things... 5
Dave O. Alderks
Advisory Board
Ken Fleck-Chairman Tim Gwyther-Vice Chairman Charles Semborski Maurine Tanner Mark Bunnell Andrew Urbanik Bruce Burgess Dennis Willis Terry Willis - Ex- Officio Advisor Brad King Mike Leschin Dr. Joe Peterson-Chancellor USU Eastern Dr. Kenneth Carpenter-Museum Director