The Cleveland-Delfs Quarry

The Cleveland-Delfs Quarry. Garden Park Fossil Area. , Across Fourmile Creek from where you stand was the site of a major dinosaur excavation. In 1954, Edwin Delfs, a zoology student at Yale University, joined the Cleveland Museum of Natural History on a fossil-hunting expedition throughout Colorado and Utah. After receiving a tip from geology students from Louisiana State University, pelfs guided his group of high school students to Cañon City. Upon arrival, the group discovered several large bone fragments and filed for a mining claim to prevent losing the fossils to uranium prospectors. , The layer of mudstone where the fragments were found, was sandwiched between two layers of hard sandstone. As the crew excavated the mudstone, they kept the upper sandstone in place with large timbers, creating a tunnel-like cavity into the cliff. During thế next three years of excavating, Delfs and his inexperienced group decided to bulldoze the K hillside and blast the sandstone with dynamite. These methods are extremely dangerous and not recommended., The fossils were packed into field jackets, hard plaster shells wrapped around the fossils to protect them. At times, Fourmile Creek would experience flash floods. Transporting the jackets, weighing up to 2,500 pounds, across the creek was as dangerous as the methods used to extract the fossils from the rock. Wooden rafts, towed by a small bulldozer, carried the jackets across the creek., In the end, the daring crew excavated about 60 percent of a Haplocanthosaurus, a large sauropod dinosaur with a long neck. Known as "Happy" this remarkably well-preserved skeleton is currently on display at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Of the four known Haplocanthosaurs discovered, the one from this quarry is the only specimen complete enough to be mounted in a museum. Despite the incredible preservation and completeness, no one has found a Haplocanthosaurus skull yet