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Digital Quarry Project website launch, Dinosaur National Monument



Today we proudly announce the launching of the Digital Quarry Project, a website about the Carnegie Quarry, at carnegiequarry.com and invite members of these lists to visit and explore. I will be at SVP next week in Dallas if anyone would like to chat more about the project. There is a feedback tab at the homepage as well. The site runs on desktops and mobile platforms.

This year Dinosaur National Monument celebrates the 100th anniversary of its establishment (and the 1,500,000 centenary of fossil deposition). Discovered in 1909, the Carnegie Quarry has a long, rich, and complicated history of excavation, research, in-situ fossil development and preservation, museum design and architecture, and public education. We possess a large archive of quarry maps, preparation notes, correspondence, planning documents, historic photographs, etc. covering day-to-day activities as well as the involvement of such luminaries as Earl Douglass, Charles W. Gilmore, Barnum Brown, Ted White, and many others. The goal of the Digital Quarry Project is to tell the remarkable story of the Carnegie Quarry via excavation maps, movie footage, and historic, written, scientific, and photographic documentation --- all made freely available on line.

After many years of planning and rumination as to how to execute the DQP, work on the project began in 2014 with extensive digital photo documentation of the thousands of Carnegie Quarry fossils at the monument and digitizing of historic quarry maps. In 2015 archival scanning began and website design and development was undertaken and completed. The DQP is an organic, growing, and evolving effort. The existing site is far from complete, but we have chosen to launch it now and begin sharing the fruits of our labor rather than wait many, many years until everything is finished. Thus, the present DQP provides a starting point and a proof of concept, with examples of the diverse kinds of information available organized along several major themes. Some of what is already on the site will be updated and refined later and much more data, of interest to both the public and the scientific community, will be added in the future.

This project would not be possible without the efforts of a number of volunteers and colleagues, but especially the dedication and great creativity of Geologist-In-Parks/GeoCorps interns Ben Otoo, Nicole Ridgwell, Thea Artemis Kinyon Boodhoo, Marie Jimenez, Trinity Stirling, and Elliott Smith. For those interested in participating, the DQP will be the focus of work for the 2016 summer Geologist-In-Parks (NPS)/ GeoCorps (GSA) interns at Dinosaur. Although those positions will not be advertised for several months, information about these intern programs can be seen http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/gip/ http://www2.nature.nps.gov/geology/mosaics/index.cfm and http://rock.geosociety.org/g_corps/index.htm

See you in Dallas,

Dan
<http://rock.geosociety.org/g_corps/index.htm>