Glueing Vertebrae

I started out my day by trying to get out the small amount of dirt that was still in my jacket under the bones.

Today was glueing day so first I glued the smaller parts of the vertebrae and the jaw together.

Once those dried I started glueing the smaller pieces of the vertebrae back onto the main piece.

I had to set the two vertebrae just so to keep the pieces together while they dried.

Since I wanted to give the glue a good 15 minutes to dry on the larger and heavier vertebrae pieces I went to look at the backbone of the Dimetrodon in the Paleontology Hall. I wanted to try to compare the size of the vertebrae so I could get an idea for how big Jane would have been.

Luckily when I can back the pieces were dry enough to move, but not dry enough to do much else with, so I laid them down in the jacket for the rest of the time.

Some of the pieces still hadn't been scrubbed so I got some water, a container, a toothbrush, and a dentist tool, and got to scrubbing

Since the pieces couldn't lay down the same way now that they're glued this is how my jacket now looks.

Cleaning my Jacket

I put the teeth through a vinegar bath just like I did with some of the bones last week.

You can see that actual teeth starting to come out.

This is a diagram of the vertebrae of a Dimetrodon.

All the dirt is out, now I'm just trying to the clean the bones even more. I also found out the two vertebrae are very large, almost as large as they get.

The bones in the jacket and all the dirt I took out of the jacket.

Finishing My Jacket

This is where I started with my jacket.

Then I had to put together a 1000 lb lift. That thing was heavy!

I eventually got it together, the instructions weren't very helpful, but it wouldn't lift. When I came in for my next day though it was lifted, so that got fixed.

David Temple was telling me about some of the interesting marks of the bones, for example possible chew marks.

To get the bones really clean I gave some of them a 10-15 minute vinegar bath.

Check out these cool marks on the inside of this bone.

David temple was telling me that sometimes they find bones that are exploded like this. They're not sure why but he think it may be that these bones were eaten by animals, got into their stomach and stomach acid, but were for some reason or another thrown up. This stomach acid would then eat into the middle of the bone, then something else would start growing and expanding in it until it burst.

Another bone I cleaned with vinegar and a toothbrush.

There's Jaw in the Backbone and Lots of Crates!

Last Tuesday I started my new and very improved internship schedule.

This is what my jacket looked like when I start.

This is a bone that was broken, you can get a good view at the inside on the bones from it.

So this is the two pieces I found a while ago that I thought might be a root and also two connected teeth that I found last time I was at my internship.

I got to ask David Temple on Tuesday and it turns out those are teeth and this isn't a root, it's infact part of Jane's jaw!

This is what my jacket looked like before I put it up.

After my jacket work I got to go take care of the crate situation that had occurred due to a dinosaur being taken apart and crated up over the weekend.

I painted black numbers on every side of the crates in the top left corner.

And then to end out the day, and scare the security guards just a little, I pulled some big rolling tables through the Palentology Hall to be put away after being used during the weekend.