A Discovery To Dig Up

A Discovery To Dig Up Explore ‘A Discovery to Dig Up’, part of Auburn, Indiana's art exhibit by DABA.

Dive into ‘A Discovery to Dig Up’, part of Auburn, Indiana's 2023 summer art exhibit by DABA. Join our fictional character Sarah Jones in her summertime farm adventures in Indiana!

Everyday we are finding out more about this mastodon discovery and what prehistoric life was like in Northern Indiana! S...
06/27/2023

Everyday we are finding out more about this mastodon discovery and what prehistoric life was like in Northern Indiana! Science Central's mastodon, Fred, was also discovered in Fort Wayne in 1998! Apparently, mastodons were pack animals so it makes sense there have been several discoveries in the area.

AHH! Ok, this is so beyond exciting! We took some tools over to start excavating the area we saw on the drone footage ye...
06/17/2023

AHH! Ok, this is so beyond exciting! We took some tools over to start excavating the area we saw on the drone footage yesterday and its definitely not sea life... It's an entire mastodon skull! Complete with tusks!!! I am so amazed by how gigantic this Pleistocene Epoch creature was! My aunt and her team took a long time carefully digging around the fossils and discovered one huge long tusk and then they found the skull. It was an incredible experience! They used the large flat teeth and elongated skull structure to identify the fossils as a mastodon (instead of other similar creatures such as a mammoth). This might be more exciting than the Devonian sea life!

Last night we went over the drone footage with my aunt and she suspects there is something more over the ridge, beyond t...
06/17/2023

Last night we went over the drone footage with my aunt and she suspects there is something more over the ridge, beyond the raccoon skull. Definitely worth more excavating. She's as excited as we are! Nate and I can't fully believe we were watching a heron eat lunch a month ago and now we have discovered over 40 Devonian sea fossils. And who knows what is over the ridge! I wonder what other sea life was around then?

06/17/2023

Back to site work today! My aunt said we've uncovered 35 sea fossils so far and there could be a lot more. Nate took his drone around to get some footage hoping to find how far the fossil bed went. He thought he'd found even more over the next hill but it seems to just be an old raccoon skull. You never know what you're going to find in the farm fields!

We've been out to the site every day for the past two weeks slowly and meticulously working to excavate the site. While ...
06/17/2023

We've been out to the site every day for the past two weeks slowly and meticulously working to excavate the site. While we appreciate this expereince, Nate and I agreed today that we could use a break and we went to his family's lake house for the day. Because of glacial runoff there are a lot of lakes in the area. What a great day!

We have identified 4 types of fossils! (Image 1) Trilobites (Image 2) Corals (Image 3) Gastropods and (Image 4) Bivalves...
06/17/2023

We have identified 4 types of fossils! (Image 1) Trilobites (Image 2) Corals (Image 3) Gastropods and (Image 4) Bivalves. Some fun facts I've learned this last week - Trilobites have spines and probably crawled on the sea floor. Corals then look a lot like corals now, with a lot of nooks and holes that look sort of like honeycomb. Extra fun fact about gastropods - the name means 'belly foot' because they move using wiggling muscles on their bellies. And bivalves have identical asymmetric shapes which look very similar to current shells. This is such a neat thing to participate and help with, I'm learning so many new skills!

We drove out to the river inlet today to ID the fossils! My aunt brought a lot of tools and Nate brought his drone to ge...
06/09/2023

We drove out to the river inlet today to ID the fossils! My aunt brought a lot of tools and Nate brought his drone to get an estimate of the size of the fossil bed. It was neat to watch her meticulously work to not disrupt the fossils. She taught me how to identify the shapes of various types of ancient marine life and it was my job to take pictures and document size and shape. It was cool to use my research skills from grad school in a new way. I'll post some pics later of the fossils close up!

What a night! We drove into town to talk more with my aunt, Dr. Jones. She lives at the corner of Past and Progress in a...
06/09/2023

What a night! We drove into town to talk more with my aunt, Dr. Jones. She lives at the corner of Past and Progress in a red brick townhouse. I just love her bright green door! She was so excited to show us her findings, based on the pictures I'd sent her. It seems like we found 400 million year-old Devonian fossils! Even though we aren't near an ocean now, there was a continental sea here during that period and these fossils are what remains. We're going out tomorrow with my aunt to gather official data and try to identify the specific species.

My aunt just texted back and told me to to come over ASAP! Told her I would come into town after I helped Dad finish up ...
06/09/2023

My aunt just texted back and told me to to come over ASAP! Told her I would come into town after I helped Dad finish up evening chores. The cows don't care if this might be a huge discovery, they just want dinner 🙃🐄

When we got home from kayaking I asked dad about the unusual rocks on the beach and he said they looked more like fossil...
06/09/2023

When we got home from kayaking I asked dad about the unusual rocks on the beach and he said they looked more like fossils to him but that I should ask my aunt, who is a paleontologist, for specific identification. Fossils?! Wow! I wonder what type they are and if there are more? I hope she answers my text soon.......

The beach was not a great place to sit after all, there were a lot of odd clumpy rocks and it was hard to find a spot to...
06/09/2023

The beach was not a great place to sit after all, there were a lot of odd clumpy rocks and it was hard to find a spot to sit. They look like shells but we're in the Midwest, there's not an ocean anywhere nearby. I'll have to ask my dad or aunt when I get home. They both have science degrees and spend a lot of time studying land and nature, I bet they have some idea of what kinds of odd rocks these are.

Nate spotted this amazing heron while we were kayaking, waiting patiently for their lunch. We watched it for a long whil...
06/09/2023

Nate spotted this amazing heron while we were kayaking, waiting patiently for their lunch. We watched it for a long while before it flew off. Herons are such a magestic bird and how can they curve their necks like that and not need a chiropracter?! Anyways, Nate and I decided to follow the heron into the inlet and look around. The beach looks like a great place for lunch!

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