Go on a palaeontology dig

“At the site, I was assigned to a square meter block located in one of the uppermost layers of the site. This meant I still needed to clear a lot of sand and clay before getting to the good stuff. Nonetheless, I trudged on and eventually started to find my first ever fossils! My collection was fairly small compared to others, but again, that was due to my location. Some of my finds included pieces of a juvenile turtle shell, alligator snapping turtle bones, and a cow nose ray tooth! “One surprising thing that I learned from my dig was that paint brushes are actually not used as much as the movies make it seem. Instead, small screwdrivers, dental picks, and bare fingers are the tools of choice. Paint brushes tend to just fill with sticky clay, and then start to break down bones. So, they are actually just a small, supplemental tool. Some other things that really surprised me about the site were the depth of the pit and the serenity of the location. Pictures just do not do the site justice in displaying how deep we are digging, and they definitely do not display how quiet the site is. Located pretty much in the middle of isolation, the fossil site space is calmingly quiet. All you hear are trees rustling and the wind blowing. I found this aspect to be a pleasant surprise and very relaxing. Overall, the day went by faster than I could have ever imagined and I cannot wait for my next dig day.”

“I didn’t really know what exactly to expect for my first paleontology fossil dig. The one thing I knew for certain though, was that I really wanted to find a shark tooth. After getting to the site and given some instruction it was time to start digging. The first thing I pull out of the ground thinking it might have been a fossil turned out to be a small rock. The next thing I pull out thinking it might have been fossil turned out to be… a different type of rock. Everyone around me though seemed to be finding really awesome stuff so I continued searching for that shark tooth. After that I didn’t seem to find much of anything for a couple hours. Then Richard, a paleontologist, asked me to help him make a plaster casing of this massive elephant vertebrae in order to remove it from the site without damaging it. [...] Once finished, me and Richard were basically covered in plaster but the experience was definitely worth it. After cleaning up a bit I got back to digging in a different area of the site. Within seemingly a few minutes I had finally found this really awesome shark tooth. This made every second of digging worthwhile. I had dug up my first fossil. After a couple more hours of seemingly finding one fossil after another it was time to clean up and go.”