Still no answers.
“You’ll find out soon enough. But here’s a little history for you. The Sioux and their ancestors who lived here were humbled by the quiet. It was, in their experience, truly pitiful, unforgiving. Hot in the summer, freezing in the winter. Some of which you’ll experience. But it wasn’t always this way. You’re sitting on what used to be a humid lowland tropical swamp. As humid as Florida is today. Maybe more so. And then?”
“It got a lot colder,” one of the men said. It was Tom Trent from Northwestern.
“Thank you, Mr. Trent. Big time colder,” McCauley underscored. “With tons of ice reshaping the terrain.”
The Yale professor surveyed the group. “Okay, anything else about Mah-KO-shi-kuh?” he said with intentional emphasis.
“Montana’s state dinosaur is the duck billed hadrosaur,” said Leslie Cohen.
“Planning on finding one yourself, Ms. Cohen?”
“Love to. Where do you think, Dr. McCauley?”
“Dig your heels into the ground. Your hadrosaur might be right under you. You never know. It could be your invitation to a formal Penrose dinner.”
This brought applause. The Penrose Medal was the Geological Society of America’s highest honor. However, it would take more than one exceptional fossil to merit the prestigious award.
“Ah, my group lives,” McCauley said. “And now welcome to home for the next six weeks. Look around. It doesn’t get any better than this. I mean it. This is as good as it gets.”
The students scanned the foreboding terrain. To some, it appeared prehistoric; to others, post-apocalyptic.
“So, back to my question. This time with answers. What do we know about where we are?”
“It’s God-awful hot,” said UC Berkeley’s Al Jaffe.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” McCauley responded.
“That will be difficult, you’re the professor,” the Harvard woman offered under her breath.
“It’s Ms. Chohany, right?”
“Yes, Dr. McCauley.”
“I imagine that if you display that attitude defending your dissertation it will be a very short session.”
“Yes,” she said sheepishly. “It would.”
McCauley liked attitude, but he figured he needed to establish lines of authority first.
“Then enlighten us, professionally.”
“Well, we’re in the heart of the mother lode of archeological and paleontological sites. There have been more than nineteen thousand digs in the immediate area. This is the home to one of the most famous T. rex—”
“No abbreviations,” McCauley interrupted. “These creatures deserve our respect.”
“…one of the most famous Tyrannosaurus rex fossils ever unearthed…” she said, thinking fuck you. “…nearly ninety percent complete.”
“Ever or in the area?”
“In Montana,” the University of Michigan’s Rich Tamburro interjected.
McCauley nodded. “And its name?”
“Her name,” Chohany declared. “It’s a she. Sue.”
Quinn McCauley was actually pleased that personalities were beginning to emerge with spirit. He needed to gauge their strengths and weaknesses. So far he was seeing clear distinctions from three of his students; Chohany being the strongest.
“And do you know where Sue was discovered? Let’s hear from the so far silent Penn Stater, Mr. Lobel and our representative from Madrid, Mr. Rodriguez.”
“Well, right here, on former Sioux land,” Lobel replied.
“And how long ago? Again, to you Mr. Lobel.”
“Sixty million years. Sixty-million-ish.”
Leslie Cohen, Adam Lobel’s girlfriend, cringed.
“More accurately.”
“Sixty-seven?” he asked.
“Look it up,” McCauley stated. “What else do we know about Sue?”
“She had awfully huge hips,” Tamburro joked. “About twelve feet wide. She was forty-two feet long. A big, big woman. Not the kind you’d want to get mad.”
“Sue was born mad,” McCauley corrected. “And you’ve all done well for any eighth grade general science student who could type Tyrannosaurus rex into Google. Who’s got more?”
“I do,” Carlos Rodriguez offered. “Sue is really just one of many on the tyrannosaur family tree. We happen to know more about tyrannosaur genera than any other classification of dinosaurs, even more than some other groups of living organisms. They range from Sue’s build right down to others about one-hundredth the size. And some of her cousins go back a good one hundred million years earlier.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez. And welcome. And to everyone, congratulations. You’re up to ninth grade. Now show me I made seven good decisions about my choices for this team. Mr. Jaffe, aside from digging up the fossilized bones, what are we finding?”
“Finding? We haven’t started yet.”
“Oh yes, we have. Everyone get up and walk around.” McCauley was opening their eyes to what they hadn’t seen.
Chohany stood and headed fifty yards south. She saw a canyon and a drop she calculated at nearly three hundred feet. She gasped at the natural beauty. Magnificently colored sedimentary layers, every inch representing eons with history ready to be unlocked. All exquisite. There were reddish-brown layers of stone laced with orange, yellow, and green where the irons and other trace metals had oxidized.
The others came back with similar reactions and descriptions of more minerals and colors.
“Okay, now that you’ve done a site survey, give us some geological forensics about this place.”
“I’d say these rocks were formed when water carried particles of sand down a river delta. There used to be a sea here and streams would have fed it.”
“Did you deduce that or read it on the park website, Mr. Trent?”
“One hundred percent observation. Look at the slope of the strata. The signs are all there.”
“You’re right, but there are larger rocks within the shale,” McCauley noted. “Anyone?”
Chohany spoke again. “Well, if the streams dried up or slowed down, the heavier rocks would have settled to the bottom.” She pointed to an area she’d seen. “And then as things speeded up again, other particles would have been trapped creating bands of sandstone, each representing distinct geological periods.”
“Very good,” the teacher said. “Now, let’s get to what this can mean for us. What good can come from all this work beyond tagging some fossils?”
The team didn’t seem to understand the question.
“I’ll try it another way. Are there any breakthroughs you can report? The things that get journal attention? Your ticket to tenure.” McCauley laughed at his own comment. However, he looked around, hoping for more in the way of a response. “Mr. Jaffe, show us how bright you are.”
“Well, on the medical side, cancer research has benefited from paleontological discoveries.”
“Welcome to tenth grade.” This was an answer he hadn’t expected. “Go on.”
“Molecular paleontologists have actually extracted hardy, fibrous protein collagen from a Tyrannosaurus rex thighbone found in the Hell Creek Formation. Other researchers discovered soft tissue in,” he paused, “may I please just say T. rex, Dr. McCauley?”
Quinn McCauley laughed. “Only because you’re on a roll.”
“Well, pathologists and mass spectrometry experts at Harvard sequenced peptide fragments which produced evidence that T. rex was actually a BFUC.”
“A what?” Leslie Cohen asked.
“A ‘B-F-U-C.’” Jaffe spelled out the letters. “Big Fat Ugly Chicken.”
Everyone snickered.
“And what does that have to do with the price of eggs?” McCauley asked.