MR. SANDMAN BRING ME A DREAM, BRING ME A FLOOR LIKE I’VE NEVER SEEN

With nearly all the work inside the QVC completed, the floor installation has started. The bugabear of the old building was water, more specifically water leaks. Leaks caused the expansion and contraction of the hygroscopic mudstones beneath the building with the concomitant shifting and twisting of the building. This should not be a problem in the new visitor center, but if there is any slight shifting and heaving a different kind of floor should avoid some of the problems.

If we installed a new concrete floor, future movement might crack it and cause sections to rise up or drop down, resulting in an irregular floor with both safety hazards and threats to the new exhibits. The solution to this potential problem is to install a different kind of floor, one using sand and pavers made of recycled rubber.

The first step in this flooring project was to excavate and remove the soil within the building to a depth of about 12 inches. That was replaced with dirt that was compacted to form a solid surface.

However, the base for the new floor is, maybe surprisingly, sand.

Sand is dumped.

Then raked out.

Next a compactor is used to compact the sand.

Careful work levels the sand and keeps it to a consistent thickness.

The floor is made up of two parts. First black squares are laid down. These have pegs and slots for the pavers themselves.

Next the pavers are put down and locked into the peg system of the base plates.

A metal side plate is installed near the irregular base of the cliff to hold the floor in place along the irregular sandstone layer.

Work started at the east end of the building on Monday and by Tuesday nearly half the floor had been laid down. It will be completed by the end of the week.

The advantage of this type of flooring over a concrete floor is that it any shifting occurs, the affected part of paver system can be taken up, the sand beneath it leveled out and the floor made level again.

Next week the last major stage of the QVC project begins --- the cleaning of the cliff face and the installation of the new exhibits. These projects will go on simultaneously so that we can be ready for the grand re-opening on Oct 4!

Photos: NPS

SUMMER TIME AND THE LIVING IS BUSY

It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted here, but that isn’t a manifestation of Dante’s apathetic listlessness acedia (often used as a temptation by the demon Belphegor). Rather it’s been a wildly hectic and successful summer for fieldwork.

Crews have been working here from the University of Nebraska, University of Utah, Harvard, the American Museum of Natural History, Brigham Young University, and three Geologists-in-Parks via the Geological Society of America. Paleontological and geological research underway is looking at reptile fossil footprints in the Permian Weber Sandstone, the paleontology and paleoenvironments of the Late Triassic Chinle Formation and the Early Jurassic Nugget Sandstone, marine reptiles of the Stump Formation, and the small reptiles, amphibians and mammals that lived with the dinosaurs in the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation. We’ve also been finishing up the exhibits and artwork for the new Quarry Visitor Center.  

"Very nice.” you say “How very interesting and good for you … now tell me what's up with the damn construction project.”

With the opening about 5 weeks away the project is close to completion. The mezzanine is now floored, the railing attached, and it will soon be carpeted. The new mezzanine has been extended several feet closer to the quarry face, giving a closer and more spectacular overview than previously available.

The ramp at the west end has also been floored and will also soon be carpeted.

Because of the past problems with the heaving of the cement floor the new building will not have a solid concrete floor pad. Instead, that floor will consist of small, thick paver blocks that will set onto a sand base. To prepare for this, the dirt in the building was excavated down 12 inches, hauled away, and replaced with new fill that was compacted as a base for the sand. The sand and new floor should be in place in a few weeks. Only a few small concrete pads have been poured and those will be used to anchor specific exhibits.

Suspended heating units have been installed above the upper mezzanine.

The ductwork for the HVAC system has been installed in the lower gallery ……

… and is now behind drywall.

The roof of the shade structure outside the QVC is now in place and resurfacing of the roads and parking lots should be done in a few weeks.

Once the paver floor is installed, all construction inside the QVC will be completed and we will start cleaning the cliff face and installing the new exhibits. There is close to a decade’s worth of dust on the quarry and covering the bones, making them dull and flat.

The bones do not stand out in their proper glory, so a good cleaning is in order. More about that later.

Photos: NPS

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