SUSPECTED ROTTING BONE MATERIAL FROM DINOSAUR QUARRIES, WARM SPRINGS RANCH, HOT SPRINGS COUNTY, WYOMING

In the course of preparation of dinosaur material, skeletal elements have been noted with bone material mixed into matrix in the bone/matrix contact. Cancellous material from the interior of large limb bones appears to have been “squirted” out of the bone/matrix contact. Potential microbial and geochemical processes occuring in a sub-aqueous, organic-rich, alkaline paleoenvironment has been suggested to describe “rotting” that occurred in the destruction of both the cancellous and surficial bone.

Several skeletal specimens were not fully prepared instead leaving the bone-matrix contact intact to illustrate the breakdown of bone. Studies of localized bone taphonomy may suggest the microbial elevation of the cancellous bone through cortical bone. Also the presence of barite rich nodules may suggest the breakdown of bone by geochemical processes that damage internal structure of skeletal elements to the deference of surficial material.