31 October 2008

weekly update: happy halloween!

We here at Rancho La Brea pride ourselves on our holiday spirit.

Michelle. Devilish excavatrix extraordinaire.

Unfortunately, Michelle took her Halloween persona a little too seriously today, and placed a hex on grid B-1.

The face (and index fingers) of evil.

Because ever since SHE worked in B-1 yesterday, we've come to a near standstill in fossil extraction. All of the bones are intertwined with one another, and completely STUCK in place. The big dire wolf skull is stuck on top of the lion skull, and the sloth vertebra is stuck next to the dire wolf skull, and the saber-toothed cat humerus is pinning the vertebra in place, etc etc etc. It is a veritable portrait of frustration. Observe:



VERITABLE, I say!

Curse you, devilish Michelle! And curse you B-1!

This week's tally:
-33 bones extracted, including that juvenile saber-toothed cat skull fragment:

Shelley's Halloween costume: hand model!

At first, we thought we'd broken the saber during excavation, but after closer inspection, it looks like the hole in the center of the tooth is the natural result of pit wear -- the erosion of bones caused by other bones as they all jostle around in the tar pit.

- We also got the second-to-last dire wolf skull out:

Photo by Michelle.

Happy Halloween!

2 comments:

Michael Dale WIlson said...

That Michelle, what a little devil!
PS dire wolf very cute with horns, it makes me think of an art project where you give various artists bone grab bags from the pit and have them assemble mythilogical creatures. fun no?
Is this something Shelly would go for?

Unknown said...

That last photo is eerily reminiscent of something from Labrynth....

What are you Page people doing to me?