Clint Boyd cleans the Edmontosaurus skull (photo: Sally Ramey)

Student Makes Rare Dinosaur Find

Clint Boyd, an NC State graduate student, led an excavation team in the recovery of a nearly complete dinosaur,which will soon be on display at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (NCMNS).

The team found a remarkably complete skeleton and skin impressions from a 67-million-year-old duckbilled dinosaur, Edmontosaurus annectens. The specimen was painstakingly recovered from a Montana hillside last summer, near the town of Ekalaka.

“This species of dinosaur is not rare,” said Julia Clarke, assistant professor in the Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department. “What makes this one special is the completeness of the specimen.”

In fact, this is the most complete dinosaur brought to North Carolina, and its completeness and preservation quality ranks it in the top five percent of all such specimens worldwide.

Since 2004, Boyd has spent summers in Ekalaka, Montana, as a volunteer paleontology camp director for the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) geology museum. In 2004, his camp crew found pieces of the dinosaur.

“We found a leg, and we removed everything that was on the surface. We suspected that there was more, so it would be a good site to dig,” Boyd said. UW’s museum did not pursue it, but Boyd didn’t forget about the site.

Back at NC State where he studies vertebrate paleontology, Boyd proposed that NCMNS take over the dig site. Through NC State’s paleontology partnership with NCMNS, Boyd helped arrange for UW to transfer ownership of its dig permit to NCMNS.

Members of Boyd’s dig team meticulously remove the dinosaur fossil. Shown are (clock-wise from top left) Stephanie West, Drew Eddy, George Rothdrake, Nate West and James Boyd. The vertebral column runs down the middle of the photograph, one of the femurs is in front of Rothdrake, and the shoulder blade is between Rothdrake and West. (photo: courtesy of Clint Boyd)

This August, NCMNS staff members joined Boyd, two UW students and several volunteers in retrieving more of the dinosaur.

The find includes a 400-pound skull and about 100 vertebrae. About 80 percent of the skeleton was recovered, with more to be collected. Typically, museum specimens contain only about 50 percent of real fossil, and are often compiled from more than one animal.

“This find is truly unique, and very important to our paleontology program,” said Clarke, who is also research curator of paleontology at NCMNS.

Ekalaka is located in the Hell Creek Formation, an intensely studied formation of Upper Cretaceous sedimentary rock. This formation has produced impressive varieties of invertebrates, plants, mammals and fish, as well as large dinosaurs like the Edmontosaurus, as well as Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus rex.

The partnership with the museum provides outstanding opportunities for joint research. Students and faculty are able to collaborate with museum staff, and the public will have opportunities to see specimens on display. “NC State has gained access to some remarkable sites in Montana,” said NCMNS Director Betsy Bennett. “We are thrilled to be working with them in recovering dinosaurs that will ultimately enhance our collections, our exhibits, and our understanding of dinosaur preservation.”

Mary Schweitzer, NC State assistant professor and curator of vertebrate paleontology, will attempt to recover soft tissue from the fossil, using a process she developed that has gained worldwide attention. The Edmontosaurus skull should be ready for museum display in about a year. A 2007 expedition is planned to retrieve the remaining vertebrae in Ekalaka.

(Source: Scope Magazine, NCSU, Winter 2007)

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