2002 玩石家 黄大一博士 恐龙.NET

Story by: Randy Stebbins
Star Staff Writer
Tuesday, Aug. 6

Science comes to life for Taiwanese group visiting Jordan-area dinosaur dig

It's pretty green up in Garfield County now, compared to the rest of drought-plagued eastern Montana. It was much greener millions of years ago. Roving groups of Triceratops lumbered along the shores of an Inland Sea covering the land. Tyrannosaurus Rex stalked them, killing many. Edmontosaurus swam in the fast water of the ancient rivers, safely away from T-Rex. Sleek, predatory Dromaeosaurs hunted the smaller critters. Crocodiles, turtles, lizards, snakes and strange, rodent-like mammals made their home in the ancient marshes.

As dinosaurs died from predation, age and disease, meat-eaters scavenged their bones, and mud and river silt quickly covered many of them. The land changed gradually: the sea dried up, mountains rose and weathered away, mile-thick glaciers gouged the bedrock, volcanoes created new country. The years piled up 66 million of them heaped upon the skeletons, which gradually turned to stone.

More than a hundred years ago, ranchers and homesteaders claimed Garfield County and the fossils that had lain undisturbed by man. Wind and rain uncovered them; they washed away and broke apart under the relentless summer sun and winter cold. Then bone diggers came. They found the first T-rex and unearthed many other species. Garfield County became famous for its fossils, but the dinosaurs didn't stay there; the diggers took them away.

The idea that Garfield County's fossils belong in a museum miles from their home doesn't sit well with a three-person outfit called Paleo-World Research Foundation. John and Cathy McKeever of the Jordan area agree with them. The McKeevers gave Paleo-World permission to dig on their ranch this summer, but the fossils will stay.

While various fossils were being excavated last week on the McKeever ranch, a 17-member Taiwanese delegation hosted by Paleo-World traveled halfway around the world to see them unearthed.

Paleo-World's philosophy is simple: bring science to ordinary people who have an extraordinary enthusiasm for a lost world. The Virginia-based operation recruits dinosaur enthusiasts and ask them to pay for a vacation working in a Montana dinosaur quarry. The vacationers get a hands-on, real-life dinosaur experience. They find, identify, dig, protect and remove the fossils. The money funds Paleo-World's research and the digs benefit the host sites in this case Jordan and Garfield County. Science moves forward; regular people push it along.

The seeds for Paleo-World's visit to Jordan were planted in 1992. Chris Morrow, fresh from biology studies at Virginia's Shenandoah University, decided to pursue his passion for dinosaurs in the Jordan area, following triceratops through the hoodoos and gumbo hills of the McKeever ranch. The three-horned dinosaur he sought had left traces all over that country, its bones scattered underfoot and falling out of the hillsides. He found, dug and preserved more than 100 fossils of the great beast, including four skeletons and 26 skulls. Since he came West, Morrow has doubled the amount of scientific data on triceratops, making him number one in his specialty.

Joe Cornwell had recently retired from big business and was visiting his wife at the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum in 2000. He found Morrow there teaching children about dinosaurs, and soon Cornwell had a toothbrush in his hand and was cleaning fossils. As their friendship deepened, the two envisioned the organization that would become Paleo-World a year later. They set out to bring science to the people, using the fossilized boneyards of Montana's badlands where Morrow had realized his dreams. Cornwell is the logistics wizard for Paleo-World. He manages the operation and gets people to Jordan. Morrow is now the paleontologist for the Garfield County Museum and for Paleo-World. He makes dinosaur science exciting, real and fun. Judy Lervick of Jordan serves as Paleo-World's field facilities manager and provides a local connection. She and her husband bought his folks' place outside Jordan a few years back. When they got there Judy threw herself into community life. She served on the Garfield County Museum board, which is how she met Cornwell and Morrow and eventually became the third member of Paleo-World. She knows the land and people and gets the diggers to the digs.

Last spring the McKeevers and Paleo-World decided to work together. A formal agreement was reached "that's what keeps friends, friends," said John McKeever and Morrow began work in the coulees, around the buttes and amongst the shattered rock on the ranch. Prior to last week's dig, he found triceratops, of course a pre-adult and another adult Ð but he also found one of the wicked little Dromaeosaurs, a stripped-down version of the meat-eating Velociraptor in "Jurassic Park." An edmontosauras (duck-billed dinosaur) swam out of the sandstone for him. Most remarkably so far, the Bury family from Seattle, Wash., here on a Paleo-World dig-for-a-day in June, discovered a T-Rex. Fitting