Dinosaur Bones discovered during the 2000 digging season. Click on any of the below images for a larger and more detailed view. Claw found when a large plaster jacket was flipped. We now have 3 claws from the hind leg of a large sauropod. We are preparing the hind leg (pubis to claws) in our prep lab. Plaster jacket containing a portion of the hind leg of a large sauropod. Shown here are some of the metatarsals being prepared. A five-foot sauropod rib being prepared and pieced back together. This is one of 10 found thus far from one dinosaur. Close-up of the rib flange. Still a lot of prep work to do, but the bone quality is excellent and it is all there! A freshly opened plaster jacket with a large Sauropod illium inside. Still a lot of matrix covering the specimen, but it is well protected and 100%. A vertebra is barely visible on the right side of the jacket. The middle-sized claw from our sauropod hind leg. It is being readied for molding so we can make casts of the specimen. This is a view of the Sauropod leg bones we were excavating at one of our sites. Here one can see the femur (top of photo), tibia and fibula, and toe bones (bottom right). The large clump at the very bottom is actually 2 neck vertebrae which were laying on top of additional metatarsals and toe bones. Having discovered a very nice Sauropod vertebra, DSI customer, Earl Buck carefully dug around the specimen, leaving the protective concretion cover in place. The bone is now ready for the next step, an aluminum foil cover and burlap soaked in plaster. Earl has just about finished plastering the Sauropod vertebra with his son in the background. After the jacket hardened, Earl then flipped the vertebra over, with no pieces lost or broken. DSI likes its customers to experience the entire dinosaur finding experience from start to finish. Apatosaurus Leg Allosaurus Claw May 2000 Dinosaur Tail July 2000 This photo shows the dinosaur 'bone bed' which is being actively worked. There is some orientation of the larger bones, probably due to the water transport mechanism. Virtually every bone at this site is fractured, but all the pieces are there, probably indicative of short transport and fast burial. Visitors are working on a series of Sauropod ribs, vertebrae and leg bones at this site. The bones are disarticulated and appear to have been transported by rapid water movement during a high-energy flood event. Often, small bones are found under and behind the larger, heavier bones. Many of the larger bones have been described, jacketed and numbered. Within the 'circle' of jackets is a Sauropod sacrum, still to be further excavated prior to jacketing and removal. Large labrador is for scale. One often gets a nice surprise when flipping a jacketed large bone. In this case, a scapula was excavated and plastered. When the cast was turned over, this nice Sauropod toe bone was on the underside, just below the scapula. Many smaller bones are found in this manner. One of the finds of the summer was this large carnivore tooth. The tooth measures 4 inches in length and is from the large, rare, predatory dinosaur, Torvosaurus, which may be the 'T-Rex' of the Jurassic in size. The enamel and tip are 100% and it exhibits beautiful sharp serrations on both edges. Also shown are two small toe bones from an as yet unidentified therapod from the same site. This is another photo of the Torvosaurus tooth.