AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO 3-DIMENSIONAL DATA COLLECTION AT DINOSAUR SITES IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN WEST

Public lands in the Rocky Mountain West are home to an abundance of vertebrate paleontological resources. These fossils are typically found in badlands terrain and at some distance from convenient transportation. These and other factors often make conventional surveying and mapping techniques very time-consuming and problematic. Even obtaining quality images, at useful scales with limited distortions, can be difficult. In order to preserve the value of these unique paleontological resources, an integrated approach to close-range photogrammetry and high-accuracy ground-control surveying has been utilized. Recently a variety of ground-control collection methods, including high-accuracy GPS and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR), were investigated. The LIDAR scanner is a ground-based, high-speed, system that collects up to 800 x, y, and z data points per second with an accuracy of +/- 6 mm. The transportable, robust, field unit provides near real time access to point cloud data allowing for accurate measurements to be made in the field. In addition, several methods for taking high-resolution, low-distortion photographs of localities were also investigated. These methods included using tripods of various heights, remote-controlled airplanes, and an aerial camera blimp system. The blimp system consists of a 6-meter-long, helium-filled blimp, which is capable of lifting a camera to 80 meters above the ground. Photographs are taken using a medium-format camera suspended below the blimp. The on-board camera is electronically positioned from the ground and can be oriented to acquire photographs that are near vertical or oblique to the subject.

These various field data collection methods have been successfully integrated using softcopy photogrammetry to produce digital terrain models, which can represent the surface to a precision of 1 cm or less. The 3-D data were brought into GIS software where they are displayed, combined with photographs, and rotated for viewing from different perspectives. These technologies were utilized at Late Jurassic bonebeds in Wyoming and Utah, as well as dinosaur tracksites in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. Information gained from these sites is aiding in our understanding of community dynamics and preservational history of dinosaur populations in the Rocky Mountain West.