wednesday,may 5,2004
news
the university daily kansar
7A
Dinosaurs to get their day in Science City display
University skeletons to highlight new exhibit
By Lisa Coble
lcoble@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
The University of Kansas and Science City in Kansas City, Mo. are collaborating to bring the University's world-class dinosaur collection to the public.
An $800,000 project underway at Science City will create an interactive paleontology laboratory where Science City employees will prepare dinosaur skeletons owned by the University.
KU researchers found more than six skeletons on a dig in the Black Hills of Wyoming over three summers: 1997, 1998 and 2002.
One of these, a Camarasaur named Annabelle, is displayed on the fifth floor of the Natural History Museum.
But the other five skeletons, many of which are complete but not assembled, have little chance of being displayed in the Natural History Museum.
There is no room in the 120- year-old building for the "homeless" dinosaurs.
less dinosaurs "i like to think of my dinosaurs as bag dinosaurs, pushing a shopping cart," said Larry Martin, senior curator of vertebrate fossils at the museum.
Martin and colleague David Burnham, paleontologist at the museum, will oversee the lab at Science City.
Science City Another skeleton, named Lyle, was excavated in 1997 and has remained in storage ever since.
The 140-million-year-old Camarasaurs will likely be the first dinosaur to go to Kansas City.
A cast of his skeleton may eventually be displayed.
"It's a shame to have these wonderful specimens and not
"It's a shame to have these wonderful specimens and not have them available to the public because of lack of facilities."
Brad Kemp
Brad Kemp
Assistant director of public affairs at the Natural History Museum
have them available to the public because of lack of facilities." said Brad Kemp, assistant director of public affairs at the museum.
museum. The University would have to build a new building if it wants to display these skeletons on campus, Martin said.
campus. He said Science City provided a great opportunity for the University to get a dinosaur cleaned and a replica of it on display.
upon its comp. The architects estimate 2,900 square footage for the space, which will take the place of Science City's Hall of Pre-History.
Matt Christopher, Olathe graduate student, is working on laboratory designs and will run the lab upon its completion.
HISTORY. "It will be one of the most complete fossil preparation labs in the country," said Christopher, who also is the product development specialist at Science City.
ince City. The public will be able to view the process of preparing a dinosaur bone from step one, removing the field jacket, to making the final cast or copy of the bone.
bone. Christopher said the lab would be the first of its kind in the nation.
There are other fossil labs at museums, but typically they are
demonstration labs and are not involved in real research, said Dean Jernigan, director of science and education at Science City.
Science City will operate the lab, which will be as interactive as possible with a television showing film of actual digs, bones that people can touch and possibly video cameras that visitors can steer around to film different parts of the process, said Dean Jernigan, education director of Science City.
Science City. Employees will cut the plaster and burlap jackets off with saws, then chisel, air-abrade and brush the rock away from the bones.
Then they treat the bones with glues and chemicals filling cracks with putty.
Finally, they will mold and cast the bone.
A paleontologist could work for months to clean and to cast a 5-foot-long Camarasaur femur, for example.
Because of the fragility of the bones, scientists make casts of the bone to be displayed. No other live preparation museum lab in the country does casting, Christopher said.
Jernigan said construction crews should have the laboratory finished by November. The lab should be completely operational by the end of 2005.
by the end of 2009. The lab is being funded by private donations and state and federal grants.
Science City's goal to bring biodiversity to the public has led to the construction of a paleontology lab in Union Station.
The idea was born several years ago with the success of the traveling McDonald's T-Rex exhibit at Science City.
— Edited by Danielle Hillix
A Camarasaur's skeleton is on display at the Natural History Museum in Dyche Hall. Camarasaurs are long-necked herbivores that lived 140 million years ago during the Jurassic period. The skeleton displayed in Dyche Hall was discovered by a group of University scientists in the Black Hills of Wyoming in 1998.