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Recent Calvert Cliff articulated porpoise skeleton quarried
Images during the dig.
IMages by Paul R. Murdoch Jr.
(Please be patient, the images are large, and may take a minute to load. Hit reload if some images do not load).
This shows an overview of the dig site. Luckily it was quite a nice day.
A slightly closer look at the dig. Notice how big the hole is. Stephen can crawl right into it!
Stephen working on the skull jacket.
Here is Paul plastering up the jackets!
This is a chunk that contains the skull. Stephen is pointing out that the skull runs straight into the cliffside.
A closeup of the excavation. For scale, the sign is the size of an 8x11" piece of paper. The holes below the jackets are slots dug out for footholds, so they could climb up to the porpoise. The jacket on the left contains the skull, which runs straight into the cliffside, and some vertebrae and ribs. The jacket on the right contains additional vertebrae, a scapula, and some ribs.
This pic shows a natural crack in the skull jacket. Hopefully this crack did not damage the fossils too much.
Here is the skull jacket about to be lowered out of the hole. Quite a task, since the jacket is so large and high up in the cliff.
Once the jacket is removed it will be placed in the small boat and be taken to the CMM. Hopefully the large jackets will not sink the tiny boat!!
Finished! All that's left is a giant hole!
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