RAPID CITY, S.D. (April 15, 2013) – Nearly 1,600 miles from their Gulf Coast Mississippi home, Roy and Rhonda Fore (pictured right) prepared to dig in to life as paleontologists. What was to be an impending record snow storm last week was no match for their enthusiasm to unearth treasures tens of millions of years old.
“I am in a learning place,” Rhonda Fore said. “I’m excited but I’m cautious because they’re saying to be careful with notes and be careful with this and that. Out in the field it’s just open. They’re using pick axes and chisels and beating it out of the ground.”
The Fores, both retired Postal Service employees from Perkinston, Miss., were among 18 volunteers from across America assisting with intense fossil preparation at the School of Mines’ Paleontology Research Laboratory last week as part of the U.S. Forest Service’s Passport in Time program. A second group of volunteer paleontologists is on campus throughout this week to continue in the cleaning and preparing of fossils that could one day find a home in museums or be the subject of groundbreaking research. After touring facilities, receiving instruction and light fossil work on Monday, the group will be in the laboratory for a full day of work Tuesday through Friday.
The specimens have been excavated over time and are stored at the university’s new research laboratory, which is home to half a million fossils. Protective jackets range in size from a foot in diameter to those covering an entire tabletop, said Sally Shelton, associate director for the School of Mines’ Museum of Geology.
Volunteer work requires opening protective jackets made of burlap and plaster, carefully cleaning the fossils with brushes and other tools of the trade and meticulously recording notes for future researchers.
While the Passport in Time program is a voluntary program, the largely retiree volunteers are assisting much needed work that the Forest Service doesn’t have the manpower to complete, said Forest Service paleontologist Barb Beasley, who is based in Chadron, Neb. “Some of the volunteers, I really consider them experts. I’m glad to have them. The Forest Service just doesn’t have the money to put into it so there is a lot of backlog.”
The Fores, like Minnesota brothers John Ludwig of Lake George and Tom Ludwig of Grand Marais, have been on several digs in nearby states with Beasley.
“You don’t get to keep it but it’s kind of fun to uncover something that’s been buried for millions of years and suddenly there it is seeing the light of day,” said John Ludwig, who retired as assistant manager for Minnesota State Parks.
Tom Ludwig, who also worked for Minnesota State Parks and retired as a park ranger, said he enjoys the work and camaraderie he’s found through participation in Passport in Time. “We got exposed to a lot of stuff (working in the state park system) but we never got to play, so this is really fun and you get to meet some neat people,” adding he first met the Fores on a different Passport in Time trip through Louisiana and Texas.
Among the many fossils to be cataloged are invertebrates, dinosaurs, prehistoric crocodiles, tortoises, rhinoceroses, flying reptiles and marine reptiles such as mosasaurs.
The School of Mines’ Museum of Geology preparator Mindy Householder is leading instruction for the volunteers. She advised prep notes are just as important as field notes for future research and should include everything from the types of tools and abrasives used to what some might consider silly details, which may help to paint a picture for researchers who may someday examine the specimen.
The Paleontology Research Laboratory, which opened in 2009, serves as a repository for the forest service. This is the first professional lab prep course offered in the new building, Shelton said.
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