Paleontologists have discovered 31 dinosaur skeletons in four years in the Hell Creek Formation around Jordan and the Fort Peck Reservoir alone, says Jack Horner, paleontologist at MSU's Museum of the Rockies. Not all were removed from the ground-or are expected to be. Of those skeletons, 10 were Triceratops, eight were Tyrannosaurus rex, five were duck-billed dinosaurs, and the rest were other smaller dinosaurs. They were all located on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service property.

"One of the coolest things to come out of all of this is that we have discovered that T. rex is a common dinosaur."

Jack Horner. (Jeannine Lintner photo)

"One of the coolest things to come out of all of this is that we have discovered that T. rex is a common dinosaur," Horner reported, adding that it was "very unexpected."

"It certainly suggests that T. rex was not a predator, because predators are very rare," he said.

Horner is heading a major study of the Hell Creek Formation in an effort to reconstruct the dinosaur-dominant ecosystem that existed there 65 million years ago. The Hell Creek Formation is about 350 feet thick. The upper part of that formation is known for harboring T. rex and Triceratops skeletons.

Originally planned as a five-year study, the project may be extended another year. A portion of the study that deals with geology will definitely be extended, Horner said. That study will be headed by Jim Schmitt of MSU's earth sciences department.

The Hell Creek project involves 13 senior scientists, several institutions, approximately 10 graduate students and an assortment of undergraduate students from all over the nation. Besides looking for dinosaur skeletons, the researchers examine sediments and analyze evidence of plants, birds and other animals that lived with the dinosaurs. The project costs about $250,000 a summer, with funding coming from a variety of sources. The primary donor is Nathan Myhrvold, a research associate with the Museum of the Rockies, founder of Intellectual Ventures and former technology chief at Microsoft. Other major backers are the Discovery Channel and Windway Capital Corp.

"The whole idea behind the study is to get as many different scientists to actually focus on interpreting this ecosystem-the top of the ecosystem when dinosaurs went extinct," Horner said. "... It's a great interpretive project for people from all over the country."

But the Hell Creek study is just one of several projects that occupy MSU paleontologists and students. Some of those involve dinosaurs. One deals with bison bones. They are:

Frankie Jackson. (Jeannine Lintner photo)

Jackson's discovery may contribute significantly to the understanding of the reproductive anatomy of dinosaurs.

• This summer's excavation of a Tyrannosaurus rex in southeast Montana. One of two found around Ekalaka, the skeleton was discovered on Bureau of Land Management property around Mill Iron near the Montana-South Dakota border. An international crew commissioned by The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County dug up the skeleton. Schmitt and Frankie Jackson of MSU participated, focusing on sediments and environmental interpretation. "As part of this, we are getting a much broader understanding of the Hell Creek Formation and trying to tie in the Ekalaka area with what Jack is doing," Jackson said. "It's the same formation in Jordan and Ekalaka."
  
  
• A sauropod nesting site in Argentina. This is another project that unites Jackson, Schmitt and Luis Chiappe of The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The project involves the discovery of the first dinosaur clutches that contain abnormal eggs. In an abstract describing the abnormal eggshells, Jackson wrote that previous reports of abnormal, multi-layered eggshells from the Mesozoic Era were based on fragments of unidentified eggshells or isolated eggs. However, this site produced a clutch of 30 titanosaurid eggs, including three abnormal, double-shelled eggs and 27 normal eggs. Exceptionally well preserved (they still had the eggshell membrane preserved between the abnormal and normal eggshells), the discovery may contribute significantly to the understanding of the reproductive anatomy of dinosaurs when compared to their closest living relatives-crocodilians and birds, Jackson said.
  
  
• Fossil eggshell sites in western Idaho. In June, Jackson and Dave Varricchio of MSU's earth sciences department explored a site in the Caribou National Forest that contains several dinosaur eggshell localities. Their work, which also involved students from several universities in cooperation with the Idaho Museum of Natural History in Pocatello, resulted in the discovery of partial skeletons of two herbivorous dinosaurs and isolated bones of a possible theropod or meat-eating dinosaur. "Fossil remains of dinosaurs are extremely rare in Idaho, contributing to the importance of these discoveries," Jackson said.
  
  
• A bison bone bed site along the Marias River upriver from Fort Benton. Located on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the site yielded four or five major layers of bison bones. At least some seem to be the result of prehistoric human activity. Jack Fisher, an MSU anthropologist, is heading the excavation project. Among those focusing on the geology of the site and how the bones were preserved are Jackson, Schmitt and Scott Patterson, an MSU student in the earth sciences department.
  
  
• Exploratory projects in the Judith River Formation around Havre and the Two Medicine Formation near Choteau.

Dave Varricchio at the site of an ornithomimid bone bed in Inner Mongolia while a bulldozer removes the overburden. The small carnivorous dinosaur lived during the late-Cretaceous period. (Mike Hettwer photo)