Step back in time

For GO New Mexico

Military families will tell you that rank has its privileges. The same may be said for age at Mesalands Community College’s Dinosaur Museum and Natural Science Laboratory in Tucumcari. Visitors younger than 3 and “dinosaurs” 99 and older get in free.

The museum, devoted to the Age of Dinosaurs, displays both authentic dinosaur fossils and bronze replicas. There are casts of dinosaur footprints, a replica dinosaur sporting a saddle (for kids, of course), and many of the exhibits were found in Quay County. Google might tell you that Route 66 and Ute Lake State Park are the major attractions in Quay County, but every kid goes through a dinosaur phase, and some of us never grow out of it.

200 million years old

Mesalands Community College offers associate degrees and certificates in multiple disciplines. The agri-business program covers fundamentals of business; farrier science covers everything from hoof care to forging; digital arts explores game arts to animation, and the wind turbine technician classes prepare students for employment in this energy field. Paleontology, however, is the program that takes students out into Quay County to seek Triassic life forms like Phytosaurs.

Axel Hungerbuehler has been teaching at Mesalands for 23 years and has studied the Triassic for 30 years. His classes are typically small, four to six students, and he prefers the Triassic, approximately 252 to 201 million years ago, over the more recent Pleistocene Epoch, when mammoths roamed eastern New Mexico. There are some very practical reasons for studying the Triassic organisms.

“I don’t want to excavate a mammoth,” Hungerbuehler says, “that would take the whole excavation season. And we don’t have the capacity to deal with those very large bones.”

He also says eastern New Mexico has a “monopoly on a slice of time in the Triassic.” During that slice of time a gigantic river comparable to the Mississippi flowed from what is now central Texas to roughly the border of Nevada. That ancient riverbed cut across Quay County. Hungerbuehler’s Mesalands students find the bones of beasts resembling today’s crocodiles, although they are not related.

“One of our finds was a snout,” he says. “It was a sizeable animal; that skull is 2-feet long.” That fossil was sent to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in Albuquerque. Fish were a large part of the Phytosaurs’ diet. The students have also collected bones that suggest there were a number of similar animals in that area. All digs are on private land, and the owners have agreed to donate the fossils to Mesalands. Summer classes are offered, and one 8- or 9-day camp is held in conjunction with Cottonwood Gulch Expeditions in Albuquerque.

After making a discovery, the fossils are packaged and transported to the museum’s laboratory. In the lab, the students learn and practice the skills necessary to remove stone from bone, and how to restore a bone if it is accidentally broken.

In addition to the fossils on display at the museum, visitors will get to see bronze castings of the fossils.

“You don’t see a collection of these bronzes anywhere else,” Hungerbuehler says. “This is it.”

Making the castings requires many steps, from forming a mold, filling it with wax, and then pouring the liquid bronze into the mold. The process takes many hours and plenty of funding.

The museum is closed Sunday and Monday. Admission for adults is $10, $6 for ages 4-11 and $8 for seniors.

Finding fossils

There are several campgrounds in Tucumcari, but an alternative is Ute Lake State Park, approximately 24 miles north on U.S. 54. Ute Lake has 146 single-family campsites, and 92 have electric hookups. The lake is 13 miles long, and offers boating; fishing for catfish, walleye and bass; showers; and dump stations.

You won’t have to travel far to look for fossils. The “Rockhound’s Guide to New Mexico” (a Falcon Guide) suggests looking for fossils east of the park along the right-of-way where New Mexico 469 crosses Revuelto Creek.

Those willing to travel another 100 miles north should visit the Dinosaur Trackways at Clayton Lake State Park. The trackway has 800 tracks from various dinosaurs. Clayton Lake is 471 acres, and trout, walleye and bass may be caught there, although fishing is not allowed March 1 through Oct. 31 to reduce disturbance of migrating waterfowl. The park also has been designated a Dark Sky Park. Star gazing is encouraged and there is a 14-inch telescope permanently mounted in this remote corner of New Mexico. Light pollution? Not a problem in Clayton.

America’s oldest graveyard

Of course, the National Park Service also preserves our paleontological heritage, says Sonya Popelka, an NPS spokesperson at Dinosaur National Monument in northwest Colorado. Popelka says at least 286 parks and monuments preserve fossils, and there are 16 parks where fossils are the primary mission.

In 1966, naturalist and author Edwin Way Teale described Dinosaur National Monument as “America’s Oldest Graveyard.” That title appeared in Teale’s “Autumn Across America,” one of four books describing the naturalist’s travels across the country during each of the four seasons. The books were published by Dodd, Mead & Company.

Like the ancient Triassic river that created Hungerbuehler’s “slice of time,” ancient rivers, lakes and swamps created Teale’s graveyard.

“Geologists don’t name ancient bodies of water as often as they name the resulting sedimentary rock that is left behind,” says Popelka. “At Dinosaur National Monument, the unnamed river flowed across the landscape in the Jurassic is best known as being the source of sands, muds and gravels in the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation.”

Those sands, muds and gravels are what visitors see at the monument when they walk through the Dinosaur National Monument’s Quarry Exhibit Hall. That hall is a fully contained wall of fossils that displays the bones of the dinosaurs that died 149 million years ago. Popelka says scientists believe the wall was once a bend in the ancient river that trapped those ancient skeletons when the water pushed them downstream.

The discovery of this gigantic mass of bones was made in 1909 when paleontologist Earl Douglass was sent to the cusp of Colorado and Utah to look for dinosaur bones. He was working for the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, and his discovery included 10 different species of dinosaurs. About 350 tons of fossils were excavated here and shipped by train to Pittsburgh. In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson designated 80 acres of fossil-bearing land as a national monument.

Uplifting of the Rocky Mountains pushed the fossils closer to the surface, and erosion continued to expose the skeletons of Camarasaurus, Stegosaurus, Camptosaurus and six more species. The Carnegie quarry was one of the most important Jurassic fossil discoveries ever. Digging there terminated in 1924, but walk through the glass-and-steel enclosed quarry and it’s easy to see the reported 1,500 dinosaur fossils remaining embedded in the rock.

Approximately 350,000 visitors make the journey to Dinosaur National Monument annually, and 90% of those visit the Carnegie Dinosaur Quarry Exhibit Hall. Popelka says the busiest times at the monument are May to September, when children are out of school.

Today’s rivers

Rivers continue to influence the park and the region, even the camping. Many of Dinosaur’s campgrounds accommodate those who enjoy floating the two rivers crossing the monument — the Green and the Yampa. The boating season is April to October, but check the monument website for exact dates. Green River offers exciting Class III and IV rapids, and outfitters and private boaters floating either water must apply for permits through recreation.gov.

While floating the rivers, campers will see 23 layers of geologic history — from the Cenozoic to Precambrian epochs — and some of the fossils produced.

Green River Campground is a wonderful spot with 80 campsites adjacent to the river of the same name, and many sites are nestled in a grove of cottonwoods. It’s open April to October, and campers may obtain reservations for Loop B through recreation.gov. Trailers are limited to 20 feet. Still, camping under the towering cottonwoods and listening to California quail might make you consider downsizing.

Hiking trails include the Sound of Silence Trail near the Split Mountain group site, and the Fossil Discovery Trail that links the visitors’ center to the quarry exhibit hall. It’s possible to see clam fossils, dinosaur fossils and fish scales along the Discovery Trail.

There is no dump station available at the campgrounds in Dinosaur National Monument, nor is there a location suitable for filling the fresh water tank of your trailer or RV.