Unearthing Wyo’s Dinos
Star-Tribune illustration by Wes Watson
When Casper College's Tate Geological Museum announced it would dig up its first Tyrannosaurus rex near Lusk, Wyo., I recognized it was something my newspaper, The Casper Star-Trbune, needed to tell in a big way. I proposed "digging deeper" for a wider look about Wyoming's dinosaurs.
With the help of the state's top paleontologists, I identified Wyoming's 10 most important dinosaur specimens and recruited graphic designer and illustrator Wes Watson, now a designer at the Virginian Pilot, to draw them.
Unearthing Wyo's Dinos included the lead, front page story about the excavation of Lee Rex. It also included an eight-page section devoted to Wyoming's rich geological history, the Bone Wars of the 1800s and Wyoming's dinosaur all-stars.
The project also included an interactive web graphic to introduce online readers to the Top 10. See it here.
I reported, researched and wrote the stories as well as all the text for the infographics and web graphic. I also coordinated efforts of the photographer and designer as project leader.
Star-Tribune illustration by Wes Watson
Top 10 Wyoming dinosaurs
Here they are, Wyoming, your dinosaur all-star team. We think these 10 specimens -- fossilized skeletons, skull fragments or a few scattered bones listed in no particular order -- are not only a good representation of dinosaurs found in the Cowboy State, but would hold their own against other states' top 10 dinosaur all-stars (if other states had them). To make the list, we solicited nominations from J.P. Cavigelli and Russell Hawley of the Tate Geological Museum and Brent Breithaupt, BLM regional paleontologist for Wyoming and five other states. From those, we picked the top 10 based on scientific significance, public interest and whatever other criteria we felt like using at the time. This isn't rocket science, after all.
PDF: Big Al PDF: Edmontosaurus
PDF: Wyoming sauropods PDF: Triceratops
Lee Rex Rising
Dwaine Wagoner has found tyrannosaurid bones before. In 1997, he traveled with famed paleontologist Phil Currie, retracing the trail of the legendary Barnum Brown up the Red Deer River near Alberta, Canada. Brown, the man who discovered the first T. rex, took lousy notes, and the location of the Dry Island bone bed had been lost. Brown's old photographs led the men to the site, which had produced the feet of several distinct specimens of Albertosaurus, a smaller version of a T. rex. Wagoner collected the first bone - a toe - from the quarry that would produce 13 more Albertasaurus specimens. Wagoner later found six tyrannosaurid teeth along the same route, part of a fairly complete skull. But on June 14, digging for a Tyrannosaurus rex north of Lusk, Wagoner's hole was empty. Cleanly dug, perfectly square, but empty.
Star-Tribune photo by Kerry Huller
Bone Wars
It's known as the Great Dinosaur Rush, the frenzied, 15-year race between two egotistical paleontologists to discover, dig and name dinosaurs from Wyoming and surrounding states. You could say it started with a single mistake.
It was a big mistake, sure. But everyone was making them in those early days of American science.
And, true, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh would almost certainly have found other excuses to bicker and spy and blow up bones rather than allow the other to catch a glimpse of their latest finds.
But the rivals didn't need another reason. Cope’s misplaced skull was the bone that broke the pleiosaur's back.
PDF: Bone Wars PDF: Bone Wars 2 PDF: Dirt to display
Interactive web graphic
Our interactive web graphic allowed readers to click through Wes Watson's illustrations of each of Wyoming's Top 10 Dinosaurs while reading the story behind their discovery.
