Paleontology

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Many of the paleontology digs in the Cody Field Office area are called bone beds. Bone beds often represent the remains of several individual dinosaur carcasses, concentrated by river currents at gravel bars or river bends.

The cast of the head of Big Al the Allosaurus that is on display in the Cody Field Office.

One of the more prominent specimens found in our area was an allosaurus named "Big Al". Big Al was excavated in 1991 and was found almost intact. He was a juvenile theropod, a meat-eater, and his skeleton was not associated with any other dinosaurs. A cast of Big Al's head is on display in the Cody Field office. The bones of Big Al are located at The Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, Montana.

Below where Big Al was found is at least one other dinosaur, which will be excavated in the summer of 2004. This dinosaur may be a plant-eating sauropod, the Apatosaurus, and was not associated with Big Al's demise.

Most ongoing excavations are uncovering sauropods. This makes sense since theropods like the Allosaurus were the predators and were outnumbered by the sauropods. It is analogous to today's populations of plant-eaters and predators.

Many different species have been unearthed in the Cody area. They include: Allosaurus, Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus, Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, and Pterosaurus. Quite often, theropod teeth have been found when exhuming sauropod bones.

Although recent publicity emphasizes the Jurassic finds, Cretaceous dinosaurs are also being uncovered in the area. Additionally the younger Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits, also within the bounds of the Cody Field Office, produce mammal fossils known in scientific circles worldwide.

Survey & Excavation Permits

There are two types of permits that are issued to qualified vertebrate paleontologists.

1. Exploration permits, which are survey permits and allow the holder to search for evidence of vertebrate fossils, and remove surface bones, but to disturb less than one square meter of the surface. An exploration / survey permit is also issued to qualified paleontological consultants for the purpose of investigating commercial ventures, such as: pipelines, coal mines, oil & gas pads, powerlines, roads or any major disturbing activity that may occur in areas that are suspected to have significant paleontological values.
2. Excavation permits allow the permittee to dig trenches to further explore for buried bones, dig pits to remove buried bones, and open an area to the bone bed that is large enough to map, photograph and work safely to remove the discovered bones. Before authorizing an excavation permit, the BLM needs to assess potential impacts to the area, including a review by a BLM archeologist and a BLM wildlife biologist. An environmental assessment must be written to document any and all concerns and must be approved by the field manager.

Institutions holding excavation permits in the Cody area include: Georgia College & State University, Cincinnati Museum Center, Virginia Museum of Natural History, University of Chicago, Concordia College, University of the Pacific and Peabody Museum.

Paleontological Resource Use Permits authorize collection of significant fossils from BLM public land. Significant fossils are defined as all vertebrate fossils and their tracks or traces, and some invertebrate or plant fossils identified as rare or important.