Pics from McGill/Carleton Dry Island Camp 2004 (long)

[Jordan Mallon <j_mallon@hotmail.com>]

Howdy all,

It's been a little more than two weeks since I got back, but I've been too 
busy since my return to show everyone my photos of the McGill/Carleton 
University trip out to Dry Island, Alberta to look for dinosaur fossils last 
month.  Well, I just finished uploading the pictures and they can be found 
by clicking the "McGill&Carleton Dry Island..." link found here:

http://briefcase.yahoo.com/paleoportfolio

As a brief introduction, the McGill/Carleton field camp is among the first 
(if not THE first) undergraduate palaeontology field camps to be offered in 
Canada.  It was lead this year by Hans Larsson of McGill.  We made a lot of 
very interesting discoveries this year, including what might be a new 
species of pachycephalosaur.  Now here's the captions to go with the photos:

01 ? Here we see the McGill/Carleton camp as it looked soon after we 
arrived.  The Dry Island badlands slope off to the left, at the edge of the 
farmer?s field.  Our sun shower was placed on the other side of those trees, 
opening out to the farmer?s field.

02 ? A shot of Phil Currie?s Albertosaurus quarry.  First day we were there. 
 The quarry contains up to 15 Albertosaurus individuals now.

03 ? Another shot of the same quarry.  Had to put the tarp up when it 
started raining.

04 ? My Carleton buddy Nic Campione with an albertosaur tooth he found in 
the quarry.  He?s smiling so big because he hadn?t found a thing till then.

05 ? Nic excavating a hadrosaur found in the Albertosaurus quarry.

06 ? My other Carleton buddy Robin Cuthbertson, digging opposite me in the 
quarry.

07 ? Maryves Guevremont and Heather Bell at work in the quarry.

08 ? Camp leader Hans Larsson poses for the camera.

09 ? Yours truly.

10 ? A shot of the Dry Island from camp level.

11 ? A large Albertosaurus tooth, in situ.

12 ? A smaller Albertosaurus tooth, in situ.

13 ? Hans eating lunch atop a bluff overlooking the Red Deer River.  The Red 
Deer made for great swimming on those overly hot days.  Barnum Brown?s 
original 1910 camp was not too far from where this photo was taken.

14 ? A typical day of prospecting involved climbing topography like this.

15 ? A Tyrannosaurus diaphysis I found while prospecting in the Scollard.  
Ex situ.

16 ? Another shot of the badlands.

17 ? McGill/Carleton team collecting at ?Theropod Knob,? a microsite at the 
base of the Scollard.

18 ? Robin and Nic taking a well-deserved break.

19 ? Robin and Hans making initial preparations to remove a giant hadrosaur 
femur from the side of a hill in the Horseshoe Canyon Fm.

20 ? The abovementioned femur, exposed.

21 ? Jacketing the femur.  That?s Robin in the back, and Sam Hapke (left) 
and Nic (right) are in the forefront.

22 ? The McGill/Carleton team with their fully jacketed hadrosaur femur.  
Back row from left: Hans Larsson, Nic Campione, and Heather Bell.  Front row 
from left: Sam Hapke, Jordan Mallon, Robin Cuthbertson, and Maryves 
Guevremont.

23 ? An exhausted McGill/Carleton team, after having hiked the 150 lbs 
hadrosaur femur nearly a km back to the Albertosaurus quarry.  We were too 
exhausted to carry it the rest of the way back to camp (an extra 2 km), so 
we left it at the quarry overnight.

24 ? Thankfully, a tourist group visiting Phil?s quarry that day grew bored 
of finding nothing and hiked the femur the rest of the way back to camp that 
evening without our knowing!  We were so thankful for the work they saved 
us, we gave them a case of beer.  Since Hans wasn?t around when the femur 
was delivered to the camp, we threw the jacket into his tent, hoping he?d 
come across it when he retired to sleep that night.

25 ? The heros at Phil?s camp who brought the femur to us.

26 ? The same group posing for the camera.

27 ? The look on Hans? face after realizing what was in his tent!

28 ? Digging in a potential hadrosaur quarry Phil had told us about.  We 
uncovered a series of chevrons, some vertebrae, and most of the hips.  
That?s Ingrid, Hans? sister on the right.  Note the mound of sandstone 
behind her.

29 ? The sandstone?s gone!  We spent 2 hours hacking it away with picks.  I 
THINK the jacket next to Hans contains the chevies.

30 ? A shot of Brian Cooley?s work outside the Tyrrell Museum.  Hans for 
scale.

31 ? The hadrosaur quarry again.  That?s Nic in the red uncovering the 
ischia.

32 ? This was taken on our last full day of prospecting in the Scollard, at 
the base of the buffalo jump.  Erin, one of Hans? grad students is on the 
left.  Nic is on the right.

33 ? Another shot of Nic breaking wood for the pig roast we had on the last 
day of camp.

34 ? The pig as it looked roasting for 8 hours in the pit.

35 ? Dinner?s served!

36 ? Hans serving up the pork.  Sorry, this one?s sideways.

37 ? Here?s Sam eating an unidentifiable piece of bloody meat.  Heather (in 
the back) pleaded with him not to eat it, though Robin, Nic, and I convinced 
him to.

38 ? Here?s a shot of Hans giving a talk projected against the side of a 
tent.  He spoke of his trips to the Antarctic and Africa in search of 
vertebrate fossils.

39 ? One of a few of Darren Tanke?s talks.  He spoke of his Mount Temple and 
mystery quarry projects.  All very interesting.

40 ? And here?s the lovely lady I came home to (had to finish the role of 
film!).

That's all, folks!  Hope you enjoyed the pictures.  If the photos decide not 
to load, wait a bit and try viewing them again later.  Yahoo doesn't give me 
a lot of bandwidth, so only so many people can view the photos at a time.

Best,

Jordan Mallon

Undergraduate Student, Carleton University
Vertebrate Paleontology & Paleoecology

Paleoart website: http://www.geocities.com/paleoportfolio/
http://dino.lm.com/artists/display.php?name=Mallon
MSN Messenger: j_mallon@hotmail.com

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