A big bone

Sometimes, in the blistering heat of a Seymour summer, it's just nice to sit in one place and move dirt.  Last week, Chris found more of Willi, our amazing articulated dimetrodon--the missing clavicle.  My assignment was to move dirt from what used to be our path into the quarry.  The fossils on the surface in this area are not "in place."  Instead, the whole section is slumping down and eroding out.  As I dug, I found dead leaves from the tree above me mixed in with the upper layers of matrix.  Because the layer has been compromised, this means that when I found small bones, their location does not provide very helpful information as they are no longer in their original location.  We mark the collection bag with the name of the area, but we don't need to map the location of the finds. 

So I was peacefully sweating and quietly moving dirt and rocks . . . until I found a big hunk of bone.  A BIG hunk of bone.  Now I'd need to work very slowly and carefully.

As I brushed away the surrounding matrix to reveal the fossil, a tell-tale shape began to reveal itself.  Chris and Dave confirmed that it is an unusually large dimetrodon humerus.