Matt and Carol's Travels: Tucumcari Again

Our next stop was one we had visited before, Tucumcari, NM. The town and campground haven't changed in the last three years.

The campground was under new ownership, and I'm not too sure if that meant, new from the last time it was under "new ownership" three years ago. We arrived this time and the same issue was still apparent... no propane. Last time it was because the new owners were waiting state certification, this time it was the lack of propane. The positive note is that we had a place for a few days.

Time to go adventure to the one place we missed last time... The Mesalands Dinosaur Museum and Science Laboratory.

The museum is not your regular dinosaurs on display, most of the dinosaurs are reproductions in bronze. The bronze replicas are available because the community college has a foundry and can reproduce the replicas from actual artifacts. I am going to show you part of the process:

ORIGINAL ARTIFACT

BEGINNING MOLD

STEPS 3 THROUGH 5

3. Mold half completed.

4. Completed mold after brown wax poured in.

5. Open mold with wax.

STEPS 6 THROUGH 9

6. Wax out of the mold.

7. Wax cleaned up.

8. Wax sprued on "tree" using red wax to provide pour channels for bronze.

EXPLODED VIEW OF 8

9. Investment - covering wax in layers of ceramic and sand.

STEPS 10 AND 11

10. Burned out in furnace - wax melts out and ceramic fires to form hollow mold.

11. Poured bronze piece, partially devested of mold.

STEPS 12 AND 13

12. Claw halves off tree.

13. Welded and cleaned up claw.

Should you be wondering, it only took 40 hours of work to get from the original to the replicated product. Imagine how long it would take to do complete dinosaur skeletons, which you will see later.

The next stop after the bronze exhibit were more beautiful mineral formations. But first a couple of quick fossils.

ESTIMATED 150 MILLION YEAR OLD BONE

This permineralized bone fragment is from a sauropod leg, the interesting part is the crystal formations in the bone. Look harder at the center of the bone.

SYCAMORE LEAF

ESTIMATED 50 MILLION YEARS OLD

SEA LILLIES

ESTIMATED 330 MILLION YEARS OLD

WOOLY MAMMOTH HAIR

ESTIMATED 10,000 - 30,000 YEARS AGO.

(Woolies didn't roam this portion of North America)

You have been very patient, so we now head to the mineral exhibit.

Some of the other amazing work they have done with their exhibits involved fiberglass. The advantage of fiberglass is it allows visitors the opportunity to touch the exhibit, just like the bronze skeletons.

The Shanks that donated their mineral collection were also responsible for a collection tree fossils they found in Iowa.

I did promise you some bronze dinosaur skeletons, I aim to keep the promise.

again, imagine the time it took to make these sculptures.

This is a bronze casting of a herbivore dinosaur bone that contains bite marks from a meat eating dinosaur (left side).

These are the center vertebrae of a Seismosaurus, a species of the better known Diplodocus, but larger, coming in at around 110 feet in length. The species is nicknamed "Earth Shaker".

THESE WERE REAL FOSSILS

(they're under glass)

There are two types of vertebrae under glass. The bigger set is from a Sauropod, which was a large dinosaur during the "Upper Jurassic" period. The large vertebrae on the left is from the trunk (body), the right is from the middle of the tail. The set is believed to have come from a medium-sized, vice giant dinosaur.

Enlarged for your enjoyment

These are the vertebrae of a Theropod. These dinosaurs lived around 200 million years ago during the "Triassic" period.

As you can see, they were a lot smaller, probably no more than 3 feet in length. On the left is the trunk vertebrae, the right is from the tail.

How many of you have been to the petrified forest in Arizona, I have as a kid. This museum has a nice collection of petrified wood on display. I remember following the signs explicitly regarding not picking up any loose material, NOT... I got a few samples to take back to my school classmates for show-and-tell.

This type of petrified wood can be found in Arizona, but this slice of log is from Madagascar. When traveling throughout the U.S. one can find petrified wood just for the taking.

Back to the bones.

This story board (above) explains differences in the dinosaur lizard (sprawling) and upright walking dinosaurs. Main differences being an upright dinosaur hip socket has a hole in it for the leg bone, the sprawler socket is solid. Uprights also have a bent thigh which allows the leg bone to attach sideways. Finally, and upright dinosaur had more rigid ankles.

Lets talk footprints in the sand/dirt/mash/muck.

FOSSIL COLLECTOR & SON WITH 1933 FIND

The museum has a fiberglass casting of this find.

PLASTER CAST OF GRALLATOR PRINTS

(approximately 200 million years old)

What's the difference? one is raised, the other is indented. The original footprint from the Grallatorv is on the left, the one on the right is a similar print that was filled in by a layer of sand.

Now you know why prints can be seen two different ways as fossils.

This was not footprints:

FOUND IN NORTHEASTERN NEW MEXICO

I was taking pictures of dinosaurs and some people photo bombed my pictures:

I managed to shew them away, and finished our photo tour.

THIS IS A BIRD

(ARCHAEOPTERYX PRONOUNCED ARK-A-OPT-AIR-RIX)

This was the earliest bird of the later Jurassic period. They had boney tails and teeth like their ancestors.

THIS IS NOT A BIRD

(PTERODACTYLUS)

This flying reptile was found in the same area as the guy above, which puts them both around 150 million years ago. The difference between the two was wing design. This flying reptile's wings were flaps of skin attached to the back of its arms. It also had an elongated fourth finger.

Turned my back and one of those dang photo bombers hit me up again.

Have you ever wondered where dinosaurs came from, let me show you.

ACTUAL DINOSAUR EGGS FOUND IN CHINA

REPLICAS OF DINOSAUR EGGS

(EXCEPT THE UPPER RIGHT TWO)

This is a nest of Dendroolithus eggs, estimated to be 70 million years old. They were found in China.

The last exhibit you will see is amber, the starting point for Jurassic Park.

RESIN

DATING BETWEEN 30 - 50 MILLION YEARS AGO

First item you may have noted, there were a lot of bugs back then too. Moving from there we shall explain amber.

Fir and pine trees would leak this sticky resin, then bugs and anything else were entombed, the resin hardened, and they became gems of a sort. They have been able to draw viable DNA from these insects. I don't believe any dinosaur eggs ever got entombed in resin, sorry folks.

To lunch we went, then home.

We did not waste all our time here in Tucumcari, I broke out my paints, and Carol did some puzzling.