March/April 2012

Miner als • Dinosaur s • F ossils
Tate Geological Museum
Geological Times
Mar.-Apr. 2012 • Vol 18, No. 10
www. casp er co l l ege.e d u / t a t e
3 0 7 - 2 6 8 - 2 4 47
Fossil of the Month –
Oligocene Bird Egg
©Drawing by Zack Pullen.
By J.P. Cavigelli, Tate Geological Museum Collections Specialist
The Tate
Geological
Museum’s
collection of bird
fossils is rather
small. But then,
bird fossils are
rather rare.
Over the years
I have featured two other bird fossils in
these pages. Being a birdwatcher and a
fossil-nut, I will be the first to admit that
bird fossils are cool. This month’s Fossil
of the Month is an Oligocene bird egg
from a private ranch in Niobrara County.
This was found and donated by Dwaine
Wagoner – didn’t he find and donate
last month’s fossil, too?
The White River Formation is well
known for its Oligocene turtle and
mammal fossils. Bird fossils (bones and
eggs) are also known from these beds,
but are rare. Most White River eggs
have classically been identified as duck
eggs, based on their size. This one
would be one of these “duck” eggs.
A recent paper that looked at the
structure of the eggshell identified at
least some of these eggs as belonging
to a more crane-like bird, probably
closely related to the modern limpkin.
For those of you nonbirders, a limpkin is
a long-legged, medium-sized inhabitant
of southeastern wetlands related to
cranes.
We have not looked at the
microstructure of this egg, but we are
identifying it as a limpkin-like bird’s egg.
Based on bone fossils, there were a
variety of extinct crane relatives in this
Director’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . Page 2
Fossil Trail Recap . . . . . . . . . Page 3
area during the Eocene and Oligocene
Epochs. Fossil eggs from the White
River Formation often show some
crushing, as this egg does.
Every now and then someone brings
us a dinosaur egg to identify here at the
Tate. I’ve been here almost eight years
and so far they have all proven not to be
dinosaur eggs. Not eggs at all. Usually
they are concretions. Eggs (bird and
dino) are easily recognized by an outer
layer of material that is often textured
and has a very distinctive cross-section.
This is the actual fossilized eggshell.
The texture and the eggshell can be
seen in the photo, right. The crosssection is a lot like what you see in a
cross-section of a chicken egg … a
What’s inside
Geology Club Corner . . . . . . Page 5
Volunteer Spotlight . . . . . . . . Page 5
crystal structure that runs perpendicular
to the eggshell surfaces.
This fossil is currently on display,
center photo, as part of our Curator’s
Choice bird fossils display. We will soon
be changing this display and putting the
egg in a more permanent exhibit.
? and Answers . . . . . . . . . . . Page 7
Calender of Events . . . . . . . Page 8
2
Director’s Note ©Drawing by Zak Pullen.
Museum
Consortium
Date Night:
The Casper
Museum
Consortium’s Date
Night was sold out!
Forty-two couples
enjoyed the evening
of Feb. 10 traveling
to four of Casper’s museums and enjoying
special tours and hors d’oeuvres. When
they visited the Tate, they were treated to
a special “Dee” tour by J.P. Cavigelli, Tate
Museum collections specialist. They then
were transported to the Lee Rex Barn where
our work study student/tour guide, Steve
Bennett (A.K.A. Fluffy) gave them a special
V.I.P. tour of Lee Rex.
I’m afraid that there were so many
questions, that they got behind schedule,
but no one
seemed to
care. I was
told that the
Lee Rex was
the talk of
the evening.
Annual Tate Conference
The planning for our annual conference,
“Invertebrates: Spineless Wonders” is on
track. Speakers lined up for the 2012 Tate
Conference are:
• Neal Larson, Black Hills Institute of
Geological Research: TBA
• Torrey Nyborg, Loma Linda University:
crabs
• Bruce Thiel, Portland Oregon: crabs
• JP Cavigelli, Tate Geological Museum:
by Deanna Schaff
invert fossils in the Tate collections
• Anton Wroblewski, Conoco-Phillips:
TBA
• Sara Spangenberg: snails of the White
River Formation
• Marron Bingle-Davis, Casper and North
Dakota: snails of either India or the
United States
• Caleb Scheer, Wisconsin: trilobites of
the upper Midwest
• Karl Osvald, BLM: introduction to invert
paleo
• Marilyn Wegweiser, BLM: Spineless
Attack on a Dinosaur Carcass
• Whitey Hagadorn, Denver Museum of
Nature and Science: TBA
• Anna Stanley, Houston: trilobites
Hopefully, our keynote speaker will be
trilobite specialist, Richhardo Levi Setti.
There are several other possible speakers
who have yet to confirm their participation.
Field trips are being organized – so far
we have two different areas to explore,
and a location to collect ammonites in the
Frontier Formation. We are hoping to find
a place where we can access Pierre Shale
ammonites, too.
per student is $65 and scholarships are
available. Water bottles, snacks, and lunches
are included.
The museums involved are the Audubon,
Fort Caspar, the Casper Planetarium, the
Nicolaysen Art Museum, the Science Zone,
the Tate Geological Museum, the Werner
Wildlife Museum, and the National Historic
Trails Interpretive Center. There is a cap
of 25 students and registration will begin
Monday, March 12. Registration may be
done online at caspermuseums.org or at the
Casper Planetarium.
New Gift Shop Apparel
Summer Digs
The first summer dig will take place the
week of July 9-13. I have been informed that
the second dig on Sept. 10-15 is filling up
fast. However, if there is enough interest, J.P.
has stated he might try to fit in another week
this fall.
The fee to participate in these digs
includes transportation to and from the dig
site, meals, and motel rooms for the week.
Plan now to join us.
More information is available at
caspercollege.edu/tate under the activities
tab. Look for Tate Summer Digs. If you have
questions contact J.P. at 307-268-3008.
Museum Adventure
Quest Camp 2012
The Casper Museum Consortium is
hosting the Museum Adventure Quest
Camp July 23 through July 27. The camp is
designed for second through fifth graders
and will include five full days of fun and
adventure.
The week will include trips to Casper
museums with activities taking place at each
site. Lunches will be either at a museum
or in a neighboring park. The total cost
Spring will soon be here and it will be
the perfect time to wear your new 13-ounce
fleece vest with the embroidered Tate logo.
They come in charcoal grey with a black
logo, which will match any color. Small to XL
sizes are $39.99 and 2X and 3X are $49.99.
Curriculum Specialist hired for
Casper College Museum
Thanks to a grant from the Natrona
County Joint Powers Board we have been
able to hire a curriculum specialist for both
the Tate Geological Museum and the Werner
Wildlife Museum. Melissa Stahley-Cummings
came on board in February. She will be
working with the staff of both museums
for one year to develop curriculum for our
exhibits, which can be used by all Natrona
county educators, home school families,
and other visitors to the museums. All of
the curriculum will be placed on our website
and will include activities to be used before
visiting the museum, during a museum visit,
and to follow up the visit.
Tate Museum
Geological Times
3
2012 tate fundraiser
FOLLOW THE FOSSIL TRAIL
The biennial fundraiser was held February 25, 2012 and was a
huge success! We would like to thank our sponsors and everyone
who came out to support the Tate. Thank You! We would also
like to congratulate Lynne Swank and the rest of the fundraiser
committee for a great evening and a job well done.
Paul Hallock is given a “Dee the Mammoth” sculpture for his many years
of support of the Tate Geological Museum. Photo courtesy of Vivian Meek.
A
Tom and Renee Allemand
Ron and Jeanneta Baugh
David Brown
Casper College Foundation
Steve Degenfelder
Lorine Edwards
Al Fraser and Laurie Fletcher
Tate Museum
Geological Times
Very Special
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS
Jimmy and Rosa Goolsby
Paul Hallock
Bill and Vi Kirkwood
Terry Logue
Bob Maxwell
Neil A. McMurry
Rob and Terri Narotzky
PRO-KOTE
Lynne Swank
Tate Foundation
The Finishing Touch
URANERZ
Uranium One
Wells Fargo Bank NA
4
©Drawing by Zak Pullen.
Exhibits Update
It seems that I have
been dividing my time
between the Tate
Geological Museum
and the Werner Wildlife
Museum more and more
often, so I have included
updates from both
museums.
Tate Geological
Museum
Recently I
made a few final
adjustments
to Dee’s text
panels. I
removed certain
sections of the
text and put
it into a short
gallery guide
entitled “Dee the
Mammoth and
the Pleistocene:
A supplementary
exhibit guide.” This
guide will provide visitors with additional
information, drawings, and photographs, and
can be taken home as a souvenir. Some of
the additional material in the guide has been
put up on our web site, so folks with a smart
phone or iPad can go straight to the website
by scanning the new QR codes on the text
panels. Once there, click on the “Exhibits”
tab to learn more. The materials on the web
site can be accessed not only by our visitors,
but also by anyone looking for mammoth
information worldwide.
Last week, just in time for Date Night, we
installed a life size Compsognathus model
in the Jurassic case located in the Walk
Through Time exhibit. To make room in the
case, we moved the Supersaurus skull to the
north wall with the rest of the Supersaurus
bones. While the skull is only a model,
(made by
Jim Copen)
it helps to
create a
complete
image of this
massive land
animal for
our visitors.
Compsognathus model
By Patti Wood Finkle, Museum Exhibits Specialist
Werner Wildlife Museum
At the beginning of 2012, I spent
three weeks at the Werner cleaning and
cataloging birds. I was able to complete
about a third of the bird collection at that
time. It is a long and laborious project that
taught me the finer points of dealing with
such a fragile and diverse collection. I am
scheduled to clean the next third of the bird
collection in March.
As many of you may know, the Casper
Star-Tribune had a feature story on the
Werner and the process involved in cleaning
the collections. If you missed it you can find
a link to the story on the Werner’s Facebook
page or go to the Star-Tribune’s website
and look for the title of the story, “Makeover
Includes Bug Removal.”
Dwaine Wagoner has finished his
“Butterflies of Natrona County” notebook.
A fantastic and informative temporary
companion exhibit
is currently located
in the basement of
the Werner near
the song birds.
This exhibit is the
culmination of many
years of dedicated
patience and skill.
The text is succinct
and the full-color
photographs are
beautiful. I definitely
recommend visiting
the Werner to see
“Butterflies of Natrona
County.”
The Werner has
received funding for
the development of a
new exhibit about the
history and process of
taxidermy. Working with
the staff at the Werner
and board members
John Stevenson and
Everet Bainter, we have
begun the concept and
development phase
of the exhibit process.
Watch for more updates
as the exhibit develops!
Butterfly exhibit at the Werner.
© Casper Star-Tribune
Tate Museum
Geological Times
5
Geology Club Corner
By Steven “Fluffy” Bennett, President Casper College Geology Club
Stereo goggles have become less of an
entertainment item and turned into more
of an antique collector’s item. They are still
one of the oldest forms of 3-D media. For
those out there that have never had the joy
of stereo goggles, let me explain how they
work. Two pictures of the same object are
taken at slightly different angles. The images
are called stereo pairs. When viewed side by
side through special glasses, they become
three-dimensional. That is the fast and easy
way of describing them.
What does this have to do with geology?
Well, the process used to take stereo
pairs has expanded into something called
photogrammetry. By taking pictures in an
airplane one can figure out “the lay of the
land.” We have since shrunk it back down
into close-range photogrammetry, and it is
being used to build 3-D images of dinosaur
track ways, archeological sites, and, in our
case, Lee Rex.
This has led to some really confusing and
I am very thankful and spoiled to be able
to use a digital camera for this. It could have
awesome things for me, since I am working
on this project. The way in which we take
been horribly expensive with film, having to
process the roll of film just to find out you
our pictures is really important and a time
messed up on a couple
consuming task. (I want
to thank Al Fraser and
of pictures and had to
redo the whole thing.
Dennis Stotts for putting
up the grid system over
Once the pictures are
done, we transfer the
Lee Rex, that made
data into a computer
my life a lot easier and
the whole thing go a lot
and send them off to be
“rendered” into a 3-D
faster. We have to take
model. We can move
pictures at 0 degrees, 90
degrees, 270 degrees
the image around, make
videos, and gather data
and some angled shots
from it.
to help fill in holes. Plus,
To date we have only
they have to overlap a
© 3Dstereo.com, Inc.
completed one video (It is
certain amount, about 66
short at 29 seconds long). You can view it
percent to the side and about 20 percent on
on Youtube.com, under: “Test Drive of Lee
the rows above and below.
Rex.” We are still working on making more
that are bigger and better, so keep an eye
out for them.
Volunteer Spotlight
The logistics involved in transporting an
18 foot by eight and half foot concretion
with an enclosed T. rex specimen from
north of Lusk, Wyo. to Casper College were
overwhelming. However, having a volunteer
like Dennis Stotts made the task a whole lot
easier. He suggested using a steel structure
to encapsulate it. Dennis was able to take
this idea to his friends at Pepper Tank
and Contracting Co. here in Casper, and
they fabricated the structure for the Tate
Geological Museum. He also is responsible
for obtaining donated lumber from Bloedorn
Lumber, which was used to brace the jacket
inside the substantial steel structure. Dennis
hauled the materials and lumber to the dig
site and set the thousand-pound beams
Tate Museum
Geological Times
By Deanna Schaff
with his gin truck. Numerous specialty tools
were fabricated in the field using his welder,
grinders, and saws. The whole process
went incredibly smoothly thanks to Dennis’s
expertise and hard work. He was excited and
proud to help get Lee Rex out of the ground
and safely to the Tate.
Dennis was born in Lander, Wyo., the
youngest of six children. He moved with his
family to Thermopolis, Wyo. when he was a
year old. There his father owned a drilling rig
and drilled water and wildcat oil wells for 30
years. It’s not unusual that he’s so interested
in geology. The family lived two blocks from
the Wyoming Dinosaur Center and he often
played in that vicinity. His father was a selftaught geologist and Dennis inherited that
love of geology. Dennis helped his father on
the drilling rig until he graduated from high
school, then moved to California with some
friends and worked and attended college
there.
During the Vietnam War Dennis joined the
United States Army and served in Korea.
After returning to California he met and
married his wife, Andrea. He continued
his education while running a small sign
business in San Luis Obispo. Many of his
hand-painted, cut-metal, and plastic-faced
signs are still in place. After graduating from
Polytechnic State University with a degree in
industrial engineering, he took a job in Green
River, Wyo. By this time they had three
children and the fourth was born in Rock
Springs, Wyo.
Dennis’ independent spirit brought him
to Casper where he began working with
residential remodeling and new construction.
He built a rammed-earth home and a passive
solar-heated home in the Casper area and a
large straw-bale shop north of Thermopolis.
He has grown some large vegetable gardens
using hot mineral water on the property near
the shop. Several years were spent working
for Amoco Pipeline. In addition to his many
engineering and construction talents, Dennis
is also a talented artist and his oil paintings
decorate many walls of the family home.
Dennis has many stories of the sturdy
pioneer family from which he is descended
and, unfortunately, I don’t have room to
include them all here. I suggest that you ask
him to lunch some time to be regaled by
stories of covered wagons, ranching, and
sharing meals with local Native Americans.
Meanwhile, the family continues to the next
generation with three grandchildren and a
great-granddaughter to carry on the tradition.
6
Werner Wildlife Museum Species of the Month
– Greater Sage-Grouse
By Robin Kepple, Public Info. Specialist at the Wyoming Game and Fish Dept.
Greater Sage-Grouse are native to
The female builds a nest on the ground
But populations of sage grouse have
Wyoming and make their home among our
under sagebrush or a clump of grass. The
decreased significantly since the early
state’s vast sagebrush-steppe ecosystem. In
nest is a shallow depression lined with a bit of
1900s. In 1906, Wyoming game warden John
fact, sage grouse are so dependent on the
plant material. She lays around seven to nine
Duncan wrote: “Sage hens are decreasing
presence of sagebrush for their survival that
eggs, which hatch in about three weeks. Sage rapidly.” Sagebrush ecosystems historically
they are known as sagebrush “obligates.”
grouse chicks are precocial and leave the
covered a large geographic area in western
Greater Sage-Grouse feed, nest,
North America. However, only about
raise chicks, and winter in sagebrush
half of the suitable habitat once present
habitats and cannot survive without it.
in the historical range of sage grouse
The sage grouse is the largest grouse
remains. (BLM 2003).
species in North America. Males can
In 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
weigh up to seven pounds and hens
Service (FWS) classified the Greater
weigh up to four pounds. Both males
Sage-Grouse as a candidate species
and females have dark grayish-brown
under the Endangered Species Act.
plumage with white patterning and a
Candidates are species for which
long, pointed tail. Males have blackthe FWS has sufficient information
throat feathers, which are separated by
to propose them as endangered or
a white V-shaped ruff around the neck.
threatened under the Endangered
White breast feathers on the males
Species Act, but for which development
conceal two large, yellowish-green air
of a proposed listing regulation is
sacs that are used in courtship displays.
precluded by other higher priority listing
Males also have yellow eye combs,
activities.
which are visible in the spring during
Thankfully, efforts to increase sage
Female and male Greater Sage-Grouse. Photo courtesy
courtship.
grouse populations in Wyoming have
of Robin Kepple.
Sage grouse are well known for their
shown some success. Despite historic
courtship displays during the breeding
nest shortly after hatching to search for food.
declines, overall numbers have increased
season. Males gather to display on a common During the first few weeks of their life, chicks
since 1996 with the exception of the Powder
breeding ground known as a lek. Females
require a lot of protein and insects will make
River Basin. Wyoming implements a “core
come to the lek to choose a mate. The
up about 60 percent of their diet at this time.
area strategy” for Greater Sage-Grouse,
males strut around with their tails spread,
Sage grouse have long been an icon of
which is designed to prevent habitat
repeatedly filling and emptying their air sacs
the American West. In 1834, Naturalist John
fragmentation in those areas of the state
with a large booming sound, which can be
Townsend reported that sage grouse flushed
most important to the species. These core
heard from more than a mile away. Although
by the hundreds in front of the horses as he
sagebrush habitats will also provide the
many males may display at a lek, only one
rode through the Green River Valley. And in
habitat needed to secure the seasonal or
or two of them get picked by a majority of the
the fall of 1886, George B. Grinnell wrote that
yearlong habitat needs of over 350 other
females for mating. After mating, female sage
the “number of grouse which flew over the
wildlife species.
grouse retire to their nest location and remain
camp reminded me of the old-time flights of
Hopefully, the Greater Sage-Grouse can
relatively sedentary until they nest. Like many
Passenger Pigeons that I used to see when
overcome the obstacles they face and their
other grouse species, the sage grouse male
I was a boy” while camped near a spring in
numbers will continue to grow. Such a unique
plays no role in the raising of the young.
Bates Hole in central Wyoming.
species deserves to live and prosper well into
the future.
Tate Museum
Geological Times
7
? and Answers
©Drawing by Zak Pullen.
Q:
By Russell J. Hawley, Tate Geological Museum Education Specialist
How many pounds of food would a mammoth
have needed every day?
A:
The equation for calculating active
metabolic rate in warm-blooded
animals is M = 140(W)0.75, where W is the
mass of the animal in kilograms and M is
the average number of kilocalories it burns
in a day. (Something to keep in mind is that
the ‘calories’ you see on food wrappers
are actually kilocalories. The food industry
probably figured that if a candy bar had
‘200,000 calories’ written on the wrapper,
nobody would touch it.)
Using this equation tells us that an Asian
elephant with a mass of, say, 3½ tons (3500
- Patti Wood-Finkle
kilograms) needs 63,705.814 kilocalories per
day. If you’re feeding it grass with a caloric
value of .4 calories per gram, that comes to
just under 160 kilograms of grass per day.
A big African bull elephant has a mass
of 6300 kilograms, and needs 247½ kg of
grass a day.
The woolly mammoth had a live mass of 4
to 6 tons, so it would need between 176 and
239 kg of grass a day. Dee was an unusually
large Columbian mammoth, with a live mass
of over 9900 kilograms – to keep Dee well
fed you’d need 347 kilograms of grass per
day – over 764 pounds! An expensive pet to
say the least.
The American mastodon was roughly the
same mass as a woolly mammoth, 4 to 6
tons. But instead of grazing on low-quality
fodder like grass, mastodons were browsing
on high-quality food like shoots and leaves.
This material would have had a higher
caloric value, perhaps around .7 calories per
gram. So a mastodon could get away with
eating ‘only’ 100 to 136 kilograms of leaves
per day.
American mastodon (Mammut americanum)
Colombian mammoth
(Mammuthus columbi)
African elephant (Loxodonta africana)
Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
Tate Museum
Geological Times
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Tate Geological Museum
125 College Drive
Casper, WY 82601
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Geological Times
2012 Tate Museum Event Calendar
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Tate Museum
Minerals • Dinosaurs • Fossils
CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED
March 14
Coffee, Tea and Dee
7:30 – 11:30 a.m.
June 1-3
“Invertebrates: Spineless Wonders”
Annual Tate Conference
April 7
Easter weekend
– No Saturday Club
July 9-13
Field Dig #1
April 18
Coffee, Tea and Dee
7:30 – 11:30 a.m.
May 2
Coffee, Tea and Dee
7:30 – 11:30 a.m.
May 5
Saturday Club
– Fossil Footprints
July 23-27
Museum Adventure Quest Camp
Sept. 10-15
Field Dig #2
Oct. 17
National Fossil Day
(featuring a Russell Hawley art show)
t
Scan to find ou
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