First Few Fossil Days

Day one, Wednesday: My sleepy day to Morden, MB

I thought my trip to Morden, Manitoba was off to a bad start when I realized that I left my newly-bought slippers and coffee mug at the Vancouver airport. Note to self, "STOP loosing things!" I arrive at the Winnipeg airport, and, when I do, Joey is waiting to pick me up. Joey (Joseph) Hatcher is the paleontologist I am bumming around with for the next few months. He has on his cool sunglasses and picks me up in the most fierce van in all of Canada, the Canadian Fossil Discovery Center van.

We drove for a few hours to Morden, the town I'm staying in for two months. It is not a big town but a small town with the nicest people you could ever meet--and the best fish and chips, but that's a different story. I finally arrived at my new home. It is filled with '60's-ish yellow and brown tiled floors with burgundy and yellow floral print. The room my bed is in has a slanted roof, so I can't fully stand up in it. Despite how it may sound a bit horrendous, I think it's perfect! It even comes equipped with air conditioning and Wi-Fi!

I settled into my room--surprised that I didn't forgotten anything, to my knowledge. I took a shower and then try to set my clock to the appropriate time. My newly-bought iPod Touch accompanied me on my trip, and it has this handy clock app. It allows the user to search cities and add them to a list. I search "Morden," and the time pops up. With that done, I set the alarm for 7 a.m., allowing myself plenty of time to meet Joey at the Canadian Fossil Discovery Center at 9 a.m.

I lay to sleep, eager to start my first day at the musum. BTW: I'm referring to museum from now on as CFDC, since I'm a bit lazy, and that means that I abbreviate words. Deal with it!

Day two, Thursday: First day in the field!

I woke up the next morning, got ready and then scurried out the door. I strolled the whole four blocks to CFDC. At 8:45 a.m., I was a bit early, so I sat outside in the already-blistering sun. Nine a.m. rolls around, however, no CFDC staff were to be seen. To make a long, boring story of myself waiting outside, alone, a short story, it wasn't until 9:45 that I saw a CFDC employee show up. It's Tyler--the PR guy. I tell him how I was waiting outside for over an hour and was supposed to be meeting Joey at 9 a.m. He responds with, "But it's only a-boot a quarter to 9!" What should you take from this? Well you should learn NOT rely on your "high-tech" iPod Touch for the correct time! I had my clocks set an hour early... at least I was early.

Joey arrived at the museum, showed me around and even sets me up with my own personal work station. Ya'll should see his own personal library of books! He has my dream collection of dinosaur and geology books, including The Dinosauria and books with personal messages and signatures of famous paleontologists, such as Jack Horner and Robert Bakker! They are the guys who are always on dinosaur Discovery Channel shows, and both of them were involved with the filming of Jurassic Park. Joey worked with both of them in Montana on various excavations and research projects.

After a walk around of them museum, we headed out to the field. The field site we visited is known as Spencer's Ditch, but the one particular site that we adventured to is a new one, having only been carefully worked on this field season. For those of ya'll who don't know about what a field season is, it is the thrilling time each year when paleontologists can go out and hunt for fossils. This is usually about late spring until early fall--any other time would generally yield rain or snow, which causes fossil excavation to be harmful to the fossils and generally hard to do. How are you going to spot a fossil eroding out of rock with snow covering the ground? You can't!

The site's unofficial name is the "Xiphactinus Kill Zone." What makes this such an awesome and rare find is that two beautifully-preserved fossils rest in the rocks.

One is a genus of mosasaur, known as Clidastes, the smallest of the mosasaurs. This genus is not as common as the other mosasaurs found in Manitoba. The mosasaur remains found so far are its skull and some rib fragments, possibly a part of its shoulder. The other main fossil found is a Xiphactinus, a fierce fish that appears to be about 18 feet in this particular case. What is so crazy about this fossil find is it that the Xiphactinus is larger than the mosasaur! Not only that, but the jaws of the Xiphactinus appear to be biting the mosasaur's flipper, which is missing three of it's "finger bones!" Could it really be that this fish, which is not normally the sea's main predator, is actually attacking the mosasaur--which is also referred to as the T-Rex of the sea? What a find!

Unfortunately, when we arrived we found the fossils experienced a bit a trauma since the last time they were visited. It had severely rained, so the fossils became partially covered up from the rain, causing the shale to turn into mud. Shale is a sedimentary rock comprised of clay-sized particles. So, when it rains the rock absorbs water easily and turns into mud. Too bad the tarp covering the exposed fossils wasn't leak-proof. You would think it would with some sturdy shovels holding it down.

After heaving off the shovels and revealing the spectacular fossils in the ground, we started to carefully pick through shale--of what might be the Gammon Ferruginous Member of the Pierre Shale Formation.

Joey gave me pointers on how to document your day in a field book. Important pieces of information to add: the time you arrive and leave the field site; the weather; make note of anyone who comes to visit the field site; what you find; and anything else of relevance. Basically, he said they're your field notes, so just write them how it makes sense to you! Oh, and Joey said that it is also a good idea to write any funny events that happen every once in a while. It makes for an entertaining story if anyone happens to write a book on you and your field adventures.

Here's one for ya! The other day Joey headed to Pembina Valley Provincial Park to do a walk-through of where he was going to be guiding a geology hike. As he did so, a man on his tractor drove by. Of course he waves to Joey from atop his grand tractor, and, of coarse, while Joey is the only person in sight, the tractor man gets his stallion of a machine stuck in the mud. Joey is trying to help him, meticulously placing glacial erratics around the tractor to prevent him from becoming more stuck with mud spraying all over him. That's not really what a paleontologist has in mind when they say they like to get dirty.

After doing field work outside for about six hours, we head back to town. I said farewell to the staff and walked my few blocks home. I decided to head out into town and wander around for a while. I was a bit anxious to see what places Morden had to offer.

One thing I really like about this town is that you can walk pretty much anywhere! This is especially nice for a traveler like myself who has no bike or car.

After about only 10 minutes, I arrive on the other side of town. I see a sign on a dirty white building that reads, "Travelers Inn." I remembered Joey said one of the students who work at the museum was raving about this place, so I decided to give it a try. I sit down, order my Molson Canadian and then peak at the menu. Too many choices, but, to wrap it up, I finally ordered fish and chips. I'm not a huge seafood fan, but this sounded particularly good that night, so I gave it a whirl. Needless to say, IT WAS THE BEST FISH AND CHIPS EVER! I don't know what they do to it, but IT WAS DELICIOUS! It had the most light and and crispy outer crust. Golden-brown to perfection. I was quite sad when I didn't have the room to finish both of my fish sticks. But hey, that means leftovers!

I walked back home, and I actually saw a neighborhood dog chase a cat up a tree. I laughed to myself because I never believed that really happened in real life. With that said, the highlight of my night was experiencing something that makes you feel at home even when you may be more than 1000 miles away.