Preparation is going strong on some of the larger jackets, which has the added benefit of freeing up space in the lab for other things! Here's the left ilium, with a total length of 1115mm. The bone is still very soft and fragmented. The only really well preserved parts tend to be the toes and legs. The object to the top of the jacket is a cervical vertebra, which we will separate from the ilium once this side is prepared and we can rejacket and roll the bones. Then it will be restoration (primarily crack filling) and molding time, which can be very challenging.
These larger jackets are chock full of surprises. Due to the softness of the matrix and bone we were not able to fully excavate or identify the individual elements in the blocks. Now in the lab we are finding that this dinosaur is much more complete than we originally believed.
I find the differences in bone preservation interesting. This ilium does indeed look very soft and yet the toes and leg bones are better preserved? The taphonomic detail of the site should make interesting reading.
ReplyDeleteHave I said how excited I am about Pete 3? I can hardly wait for the paper!
We have done a lot of work on the taphonomy of the site, and a paper will be forthcoming. The interesting thing is there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the splintering, the foot and legs mostly are solid, however the MT V is splintery, and was found touching the nicely preserved MT IV.
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