Views from Ghost Ranch Trail

A few months ago, Jeff & I discovered that a specific type of dinosaur was discovered here in New Mexico a few hundred years ago on the land that is now part of Ghost Ranch.  When we heard that a tour was offered to take us to the dig site, and then to the lab to see these bones up close and personal, well, we couldn’t resist.  Jeff was particularly excited about seeing this piece of natural history!

View along Paleontology Tour Trail

One of the great things about doing this tour is that we got to see some views of and from the trail that we hadn’t seen before.  This view gives you a good view of the different layers of rock formations that exist throughout the area (New Mexico and Arizona).  The top most sort of grey layer is the Todilto Formation.  These are the saline deposits left over from when this area was covered by an inland sea during the late Middle Jurassic period.  The orange and yellow layer below that were sand dunes of the Entrada Formation, and are from about 165 million years ago.  The rosy colored stones below that are from what is called the Chinle (pronounced CHIN-lee) Formation.  This refers to a time in earth’s history dating back 200 – 300 million years ago.  The dinosaur bones we were about to see dated back to that time.  It is believed that the dinosaurs were killed during a flash flood.

View of Pedernal  from Paleontology Tour Trail

This view really doesn’t have anything to do with dinosaurs, but I do love any view I can get of the Pedernal (the flat top formation in the distance)!

View of Dig Site

Here’s the first view of the dig site.  Before we get into info about the dig site, let’s chat a bit about the dinosaur that was discovered here.  The dinosaur is called a Coelophysis (pronounced CEEL-lo-phy-sis).  It does have a “nickname” of sorts – Rioarribasaurous.  This nickname was to acknowledge that this dinosaur was first discovered in this area, in Rio Arriba County of New Mexico.  Still, the tour guide didn’t seem to like it when Jeff mentioned this name!  The Coelophysis grew to be between 6 – 10 feet long, and weighed between 50 – 100 pounds.  They had very small front legs, so that they looked a bit like Tyrannosaurus Rex.  However, they had a long tail and neck and a very narrow skull.  They would flock together like birds, and it’s believed they had what are called proto-feathers or “dino-fuzz”!  It is the state fossil of New Mexico, too.

Overview of Coelophysis Dig Site

This is a view of the dig site as it looks today.  It was much more level when it was an active site, but for now, the scientists have enough bones so that it’s no longer being actively dug.   It was interesting to find out that the way excavations of this type are done today.  Entire blocks of ground are dug up and sent to various museums for the paleontologists at each museum to do the excavating in an enclosed environment – a lab, as I think of it.  The blocks are actually quite large.  The one that they are working on at Ghost Ranch looked to be about 8’ x 8’ x 4’ thick.

View from Top of Dig Site

We continued up the trail just a bit beyond the dig site to check out the view on the other side of the rise.  Quite a lovely view, with excellent displays of the types of rock formations that I described above!  After this, we made our way back down the trail and into the lab (next post).

Enjoy!