Novel way to reconstruct a skull

[Richard W Travsky <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

This item appeared in the June 5th edition of the
Casper, Wyoming, Star Tribune.

This article describes the novel way the staff at the Tate
Museum of Casper College in Wyoming "unsmash", assemble,
and cast a crushed Apatosaurus skull. Parts of three different
Apatosaurus skeletons, found near Como Bluff, Wyoming, are
being worked on. It is hoped to have enough to assemble into
a single skeleton for display purposes. To this end the skull,
said to be one of two ever found, is needed.

The skull, tho, is crushed from the eye sockets forward. The 
brain case on back was essentially in one piece, but flattened.

The problem was to reassemble the skull. Plastic casts would not
be flexible enough to permit re-shaping of the pieces for
assembly. The Tate Museum's approach was to make wax casts.

The wax casts could be heated to soften them, and then bent
into proper shape. After this re-shaping, assembly could proceed.

The Tate staff say the wax does a good job of preserving the
bone's texture and features.

+----------+    Rich Travsky   RTRAVSKY @ UWYO . EDU
|          |    Division  of  Information  Technology
|          |    University of Wyoming   (307) 766 - 3663 / 3668
|       UW |    "Wyoming is the capital of Denver." - a tourist
|        * |    "One of those square states." - another tourist
+----------+    http://w3.uwyo.edu/~rtravsky/