FREE AT LAST!!!

Well the sarcophagus is finally down and the quarry completely exposed once again. The scaffolding and plywood are stacked outside and being loaded onto trucks. The crane and basket used to put it up and take it down has left the building for the last time. This is a momentous event but I'll just let these photos do the talking.

Photos: NPS

LAYING DOWN THE GOLDEN SLABS

Last year we saw the demolition and removal of the rotunda and ophidian entrance ramp leading up to the second floor of the glass enclosure around the Carnegie Quarry. Those features will not be replaced but we wanted to retain the dramatic experience of entering the building and suddenly seeing, all at once, the entire sandstone face and its 1500 dinosaur bones.  So the second floor entrance has been retained but will be accomplished in a different way.  A wide sidewalk will lead visitors to the far west end of the building where they will then go up a 150 foot long ramp that rises from ground level to the second floor at the east end of the building.

The sidewalk and steel framework for the ramp has been in place for some time. We recently completed this project by putting in precast concrete slabs. The slabs weighed between 10,000 - 20,000 pounds apiece, so this was a task requiring both heavy equipment and a delicate touch.

The slabs arrived on a number of flatbed trucks with several slabs on each. They were made near Tooele Utah, some 200+ miles and several mountain passes away. After getting the slabs to the QVC the first challenge was to turn the flatbed around and back it into a narrow space on the south side of the building, between the newly installed bathrooms and the sidewalks. This is no mean task because with all the various projects currently underway at the Quarry, the parking lot is crowded and space is at a premium. So this was a tricky bit of driving.

 

 

 

Once the truck was in place a large crane, with a lifting capacity of 70,000+ pounds, swung its arm over the trucks.

Chains at the end of the crane’s cable were attached to the four corners of each slab.

Once in place, each slab was lifted up and swung northwards to the ramp framework.

Then the slab was gently swung over the framework then slowly lowered, pushed, and guided into place.

Once the slab was in in place the chains were detached and the arm swung back to the get the next slab.

Metal connectors built into each slab are then welded to the steel framework.

Eventually all the slabs were in-place and attached. The double doors have been installed where the ramp joins the building. In a few months they will be swung open to let visitors once again gaze upon the Jurassic rocks and bones of the Carnegie Quarry.

Photos: NPS

DRAINING THE GULL WING ROOF

The gull wing roof is one of the architectural signatures of the Quarry Visitor Center. It’s pretty spectacular but poses some problems that might not be obvious.

Unlike your home, water from melting snow and summer thunderstorm toad floaters does not run to the edge of the roof and off the side down rain gutters and drain pipes. Instead it runs to the bottom of the V of the gull wing and down a drain at the center of the roof, into horizontal pipes near the ceiling, and down into a drain system that carried it away from the building. Remember that many of the problems of the old QVC were related to the expansive soil beneath it getting wet. So getting the water on the roof away from the building is critical.

While the sarcophagus is being dismantled work goes on nearby inside the building assembling the new roof drainage piping system. Given that much of this is 40 feet above the ground, the new piping is installed, anchored and connected primarily working on a scissor lift.

Photos: NPS

OPENING THE SARCOPHAGUS IN THE VALLEY OF THE LIZARD KINGS

Well the day of joy has finally arrived! Just before the long 4^th of July weekend crews began to take down the plywood sarcophagus which has hidden the quarry sandstone and its treasure of dinosaur bones for so long.

In one sense this is just a simple reversal of how the sarcophagus and its scaffolding framework was erected. However, this is fraught with just as many dangers for the fossils as when it was put up. Each sheet of plywood, each pipe and connector of the scaffolding, each layer of netting, fireproof blanketing, foam padding, etc. has to come off without being dropped.

Some work rules will reduce the danger. Each tool is on a lanyard so that it won’t go to the ground (or fossil face) if dropped. Every piece of pipe is held with two hands as it passed from one person to another. Each piece of plywood is hooked to a cable and lowered to the ground or into a basket on the end of a crane.

As the parts are taken off they are stored outside in the parking lot.

Some work is done on the scaffolding itself. However, higher, more difficult areas are reached by a crane with a terminal basket.

Taking this down will take less time than putting it up, but we are still looking at 2-3 weeks before all the plywood and scaffolding is down and completely outside the Quarry Visitor Center. At that point all the dinosaur bones will, for the first time in 16 months, be bathed again in natural light.

Photos: NPS

CUTTING OFF YOUR TOE TO SHORTEN YOUR FACE

One of the improvements in the new Quarry Visitor Center is that the mezzanine will be wider. This will allow visitors to get much closer to the quarry at mid-height and so better see the multitude of bones along the top and center of the sandstone face. But nothing comes without a price, in this case smaller working space.


As constant readers will recall, last summer we removed the 14,000 pound moveable crane from the building because it was no longer safe to operate. In the new building we will use some sort of extending lift with a basket to reach the more inaccessible higher parts of the cliff for cleaning, conservation, and research. The widened mezzanine lessened the space available for the crane, so anything that can buy us some space would help with that problem.

The outer surface of the sandstone is irregular, with some portions jutting out further than others. Those parts that haven’t been excavated down to the bone layer jut out at ground level, like the toe of the face. Areas excavated all the way back to the main bone layer do not stick out. By removing the toe we can move the face back about 12 inches in the most critical areas, buying some room for the wheels and body of the lift to operate in.

To get this done, some of  the bottom sheets of plywood of the sarcophagus were removed, providing access to the toe. Paleontologists Dr.Brooks Britt and Dr. Rod Scheetz, of Brigham Young University, helped us with the excavation.

Pneumatic chisels and drills were employed, although their use was complicated by the fact that Rod and Brooks needed to work in and around the metal scaffolding that forms the support for the sarcophagus. After a few days of struggle about 30 feet of the toe was cut back 12-15 inches. Every inch counts!

With this work completed the plywood was put back up. Work continues in getting the glass completely installed in the walls. Once that is completed, the next big step will be the dismantling of the scaffolding and plywood sarcophagus, allowing sunlight onto the quarry face for the first time in 18 months.

Yes, he may be a paleontologist with a Ph.D. but Brooks still has to abide by the rules, or else.

Before becoming a paleontologist, Brooks Britt was the drummer in the moderately successful punk rock / Lawrence Welk polka music fusion band called The Provo Accordion Cannibals.

Photos: Brooks Britt, Rod Scheetz

THE JURAPPIAN WAY

Work progresses slowly on the installation of the framing and windows, with about ¾ of the windows now in. However, the pouring of concrete around the Quarry Visitor Center is completed.

 A long, wide walkway leads from the parking lot to the base of the entrance ramp that runs up and along the south wall of the building.

Sidewalks and curbs connect that walkway with the exit doors, visitor shelter, and restrooms. Decorative landscaping blocks, some with Thalassinoides trace fossils, are in place.

These concrete blocks are the bases for the beams that will support the roof of a shade structure where visitors can comfortably wait for the shuttle bus.

There is a saying about ancient Rome that “All roads lead to Rome.” There is a similar truth for Dinosaur National Monument, where all roads lead to the Quarry Visitor Center, although getting to the Carnegie Quarry from the Echo Park campground deep in the Monument’s river canyons may take some creative route finding.

Photos: NPS

ICHNOFOSSILS AS INADVERTENT LANDSCAPING ELEMENTS

The new QVC, like the 1958 one, will be a striking and unique building, both pleasing to look at and be in. However, another consideration is the building’s surroundings. The gull-wing roof mimics the cut that the quarry sits in and the hills surrounding it. While designed to fit the terrain, limited landscaping elements will be added to improve the overall look and feel of the site. Among those elements are a series of large blocks of rock. While larges pieces of blocks are not unusual landscaping fare, these blocks do hold some surprises.

The rocks came from a quarry near Maybell, CO. They are pieces of Paleozoic limestone, carbonate rich rock formed of sediments deposited on an ocean floor well before the Age of Dinosaurs. They are grey-beige-brown and match the color of the rocks in the area of the QVC.

However, closer inspection of the bedding surfaces of the blocks reveals some interesting features. These surfaces are quite irregular, showing a dense pattern of thick sinuous ridges that branch and intersect, separated by depressions. The causal observer might be forgiven for thinking they are ripple currents or infilled mudcracks, if the casual observer would even notice the texture at all.

But the ridges are actually ancient burrows made by marine arthropods living on a seafloor hundreds of millions of years ago. The scientific name for these burrows is Thallasinoides. They are common fossils in marine rocks worldwide. In modern day oceans Thalassinoides-like burrows are made primarily by decapods, especially thalassinid shrimp, in intertidal and shallow subtidal marine settings (1). However, Paleozoic crustacean fossils are rare and many Paleozoic Thalassinoides may have had other makers (2)

So when you come to visit the QVC after it reopens in October 2011, remember to take a look at the landscape rocks and their burrows when you are waiting for the shuttle bus. It may be the first time that you have seen this interesting kind of fossil, although they are nowhere near as interesting as the nearby quarry full of majestic dinosaur bones.

Thanks to Tony Ekdale (paleontologist, University of Utah) for identifying the burrows as Thalassinoides.

References

(1) Myrow, P. 1995. Thalassinoides and the enigma of Early Paleozoic open-framework burrow systems. Palaios 10: 58-74.

(2) Ekdale, A.A. and R.G. Bromley 2003. Paleoethologic interpretation of complex Thalassinoides in shallow-marine limestones, Lower Ordovician, southern Sweden. Palaeogeography, Paleoclimatology, Palaeoecology 192: 221-227.