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Alaskan Dinosaur Expedition
July 24 - 25 |
| Our goal here is to evaluate the bone bed called the Mancil site. The day started with heavy weather. Perhaps the true arctic weather pattern (more cold and cloudy than sunny) is finally upon us.
Our first course of action is to sift the beach sand for bones, but as it turns out, this year, the beach is gone. Our efforts here are futile. From the top of the bluff it is easy to see that the general migration of the Colville River is to the west here; as the river moves it cuts into its banks, causing the rockslides and perhaps changing the face of these bone quarries from year to year. Around 3 o’clock the fog finally lifts. This site is about five meters from the top of the bluff, and two of the noses are producing bone. However, the roots from the modern plants are everywhere and have destroyed much of the bone. As Kevin and I remove the overburden (top layer) with picks and shovels, we hit the permafrost. Given that this is my first upclose look at such a thing, I move very slowly. What we were encountering was mud with a latticework of ice separating the mud into lenses about 1-centimeter thick. Permafrost seems to absorb much of the energy of a blow from a rock hammer, so progress is slow. The tundra here is in bloom, and there are berries everywhere. However, fall color is starting to show in some of the plants. |