Saying Goodbye to the 40th Anniversary of the "Best Summer Job" (Ever)

As 2019 is drawing to a close, it is time to revisit the best summer job I ever had and then say "Bye" to its 40th anniversary (unless I am inspired to write about it some more).

I have reminisced about my 1979 summer job as part of a Fossil Recovery Project south of Farmington, New Mexico, numerous times.  And numerous times I have entertained kids with the story of "How I Got Paid to Find Dinosaur Bones, as a Summer Job". 

The area is called the Bisti Badlands.  One of the major drainages (normally dry) is called De-Na-Zin Wash.  As a Western Coal company coal mine was slated to open, by Federal Law, after Archeological surveys and Recoveries were done, then along came the Fossil Recovery.  It included two of us from UT El Paso and an unknown number later from the University of New Mexico.  The Recovery included all recoverable Vertebrate fossils and samples of Invertebrate fossils and Permineralized wood.  

(There was supposed to be a 1980 repeat, but apparently, they couldn't get all of the permits for the Federal and Tribal lands.  We covered about 2 and 1/2 square miles in 6 weeks.  (And that was after it rained almost every day for the first two weeks.)

My field partner Ron and I each had our own pickup truck with a camper.  On our days off, he preferred to "veg out", watch TV, and drink beer in the motel room.  I preferred to roam around the mountains of SW Colorado, camp out, and drink beer there.  As I think we started work (after driving 440 miles from El Paso the day before) on a Thursday, so our "weekends" were Tuesday and Wednesday.  (I wish we had adjusted to a normal weekend, for reasons I may describe in a future post.)

Aside from some painful life experiences (in regards to getting my heart broken), the summer of 1979 was a pretty cool summer and driving back through those areas (Farmington, NM and Durango, CO) during 2015 and 2016 provided memories, enjoyment, and adventures.

Here are a few scanned slides from 1979 (complete with a few dust spots).  They are of the exposures of the Cretaceous Fruitland Formation.  As I was generally unfamiliar with the area, I am uncertain about the direction in which most of these were taken (and there weren't many nearby landmarks).

 Figure 1.  Mountains in the background are uncertain.

 Figure 2.  A freshwater clam.

 Figure 3.

 Figure 4.  Thin surficial coal seams.

 Figure 5.  A nice stump cross-section.

Figure 6.  A side view of this nice Permineralized stump.  (I hope it wound up in a museum.)

 Figure 7.  An Erosion Pedestal (right) and a dinosaur bone (center).

 Figure 8.  Same dinosaur bone.  I think most of the dino bones were from Hadrosaurs.

 Figure 9.

Figure 10.  As you can see, it ain't suitable for plant growth = "badlands".

Figure 11.  Erosion Pedestals. 

 Figure 12.  Hillside littered with Permineralized Wood.

 Figure 13.  We had to Recover every bone fragment associated with an exposed dinosaur bone.

Figure 14.  Another set of Erosion Pedestals. 

 Figure 15.

Figure 16.  A rather nice Permineralized log, complete with knots.

Well, that's enough for now.  May do a follow-up with more photos.