By JOHN BECHTELFor the Minot Daily News

North Dakota has alwaysbeen famous for its dirt. Ithas exceptionally fertile soiland has long been one of thebread baskets of the coun-try, if not the world.

It has been commonknowledge for decades thatNorth Dakota has oiltrapped deep in its shale,but it has only been in thelast decade that technologymade extraction of that oileconomically feasible. Thenthere’s the coal: NorthDakota has the secondlargest lignite reserves in theworld, second only toAustralia, which is enoughlignite near the surface ofthe ground to meet all NorthDakota’s energy needs (atpresent rates of consump-tion) for about the next 800years. Last, but by no meansleast, North Dakota has oneof the finest historical textson the planet; it’s a storyburied in its rocks morethan in its books, often inthe same areas that producethe food, coal and oil.

The story is written in aspecial language, the lan-guage of fossils, and it takesspecial scientists to read andtranslate it. They are calledpaleontologists, and in thesummer months theprospectors among themcan be seen leading teams inshorts and t-shirts andarmed with picks and mat-tocks looking for messagesfrom the past. The quarrierscarefully excavate the fossilspecimens and create “jack-ets” or plaster casts arounditems for transporting backto the shop. Home base is aspecial lab on the groundfloor of the Heritage Center,North Dakota’s largestmuseum, located on the132-acre campus of the statecapitol in Bismarck. Therethe rock “mummies” areunwrapped, cleaned,ground, air brushed andidentified with a jeweler’scare. Once catalogued, thesamples are placed in the

collections storage area untilrecalled by researchers andscientists.

The story of these speci-mens has not been boring.Fossil evidence has beenfound of giant squid inPembina County in north-eastern N.D., woolly mam-moth in southeastern N.D.,Triceratops (large horneddinosaur) and a duck-billeddinosaur in BowmanCounty in southwesternN.D., giant crocodiles inwestern N.D., and a giantground sloth in south-cen-tral N.D. They have foundthe giant Ice Age bison inMountrail and Williamscounties (a forebear of thecurrent bison, but twice theweight with a menacingseven-foot horn span.) Andyes, Tyrannosaurus rex (T-rex) has been found nearMandan.

What is a fossil? It is abody part of some previous-ly living organism that hasbecome mineralized, petri-fied, turned to stone. Fossilsare rare, because mostdecaying remains of plantand animal life are con-sumed by other organismsand are ultimately returnedto the atmosphere as carbon

products. Sometimes thefossil is gone, but an impres-sion of it remains in stone.

How do paleontologistsknow where to dig? Whensomething that appears tobe a fossil is discovered,how do we know if it isrecent or prehistoric? Howdo we know what plant, ani-mal or living organism itbelonged to? How do weknow how old it was? Howdo we know what body partwe are looking at, and howdo we know what the rest of“it” looked like? Where wasit in the food chain? Whatdid it eat, and what was iteaten by? How do we knowwhat to call it? Whatspecies, genus, family,order, class or phylum did itbelong to? All of these ques-tions and their answers arethe domain of paleontolo-gists, who are also histori-ans, anatomists, forensicdetectives, geologists, withadditional extensive knowl-edge of botany, zoology,archeology and anthropolo-gy.

Jeff Person, a staff pale-ontologist at the HeritageCenter museum inBismarck says he made hiscareer choice in 1991 at the

age of 17, when he workedfor two weeks with JohnHoganson, the first and onlystate paleontologist in N.D.constructing the skeleton ofthe huge HighgateMastodon that today standsin the center of the muse-um. He was hooked by theend of those two weeks, butit was not until 2008 that hesaw an ad for a paleontolo-gist at the Heritage Centerand was interviewed againby Hoganson. Jeff calls it hisdream job.

Becky Barnes, Jeff’s col-league and fellow paleontol-ogist, cautions that the workthey do requires greatpatience and attention todetail. Fossils that are mil-lions of years old are notreplaceable.

The Heritage Center,which Jeff and Becky nowview as their professionalhome, doubled in size in2014 with a $52 millionaddition. It is the exhibitionhall, not just for paleontol-ogy, but for the 600-million-year history and pre-historyof North Dakota, with all ofthe geological, climatic,environmental, biologicaland cultural changes andexchanges right up to the

present day, with indica-tions about the future. Itcovers periods of geologictime all the way back towhen most or all of the statewas under shallow oceansof water from the Arctic tothe Gulf of Mexico; with theRocky Mountains pushingup through the crust ofearth to the west. You canwalk through these “deepwater exhibits” as if on thebottom of the ocean, andsuspended from the ceilingyou will see the 24-footmosasaur (marine predator)found near Cooperstown, a16-foot prehistoric fish, anda 12-foot long sea turtle (allcast).

In time, western NorthDakota resembled what istoday the Louisiana bayoucountry or the FloridaEverglades, with a subtropi-cal climate and a huge delta.In the museum you can seea life-sized Triceratops faceoff against a T-rex. Throughcomputer animation youcan watch them in combat.You can see a duck-billeddinosaur leg bone thatshows teeth marks left by aT-rex, and there is aTriceratops brow horn thatyou can actually touch.

Exhibit follows exhibit,taking you through a tour ofprehistoric times, with fos-sils set off by wall muralsdepicting what NorthDakota probably looked likeduring each time period.From swampland to savan-na, you see remains of crea-tures you’ve never seenbefore and names you’venever heard of and wouldprobably be hard pressed topronounce. The last signifi-cant climate change was theGreat Ice Age which camedown from Canada andscraped everything before it.It was these glaciers thatdragged and dropped rocks.It was the movement ofthese ice packs, some a mileor more thick, that buriedsome fossils deeper in earth,waiting to be reclaimed.

Last stop on our paleon-tology tour is the LearningLab where you can watch avideo excavation of a 60-million-year-old crocodileskull and preparation of thefossil for exhibit. Here aselsewhere, it won’t be justthe children who are cran-ing their necks to peer, gawkand stare in amazement.

Sunday, November 23, 2014 • Section E

www.MinotDailyNews.com

Lifestyles: Jill Hambek 857-1938 or1-800-735-3229; e-mail jhambek@minotdailynews.com

DESTINATIONSWHAT’S INSIDE:

Visit us online at www.MinotDailyNews.com

DDiidd MMiinnoott hhaavvee TTyyrraannnnoossaauurruuss rreexx??

See T-REX — Page E8

Best fossil clues remain thousands of feet below surface

Carolyn Ferguson/Special to MDN

Paleontologist Jeff Person poses with a dinosaur fossil at The Heritage Center. The fossils and much more can be seen at the state’s free museumin Bismarck.

¨ A fossil is on display at one of the muse-ums at the Heritage Center in Bismarck.

¬ Paleontologist Becky Barnes examinesfossils at the Heritage Center.

Photos by Carolyn Ferguson/Special to MDN

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healthMilitary, Page E5

And when the docents bring class-es of school children through onguided tours, it is permissible foradults to eavesdrop while pre-tending to look at something else.

The Department of MineralResources publishes Geo News, abeautiful, glossy and FREE maga-zine-quality newsletter, availableelectronically or in print. You candownload the current issue atwww.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/newslet-ter. For the past 14 years, NorthDakota’s state paleontologist JohnHoganson, now retired, hasencouraged interested membersof the public to accompany spe-cialists from the GeologicalSurvey staff on paleontologicaldigs, with an enthusiasticresponse. The digs last up to aweek or so, and may be free orrequire a nominal contribution toattest to your commitment toshowing up. You have to be atleast 15 years of age to participate,and your food, lodging and trans-portation are usually your respon-sibility. There is no upper agelimit as long as you can handlethe work. The 2015 planned digswill be announced in the January2015 issue of Geo News. The badnews is space is limited (only 10or 15 participants across all sites),there are no reservations, and it’sfirst-come, first served. A word ofcaution is advised: Past partici-pants have been known tobecome aspiring paleontologists.Some have even made importantcareer decisions based on briefexposure.

The Innovation Gallery isabout the early people of NorthDakota, beginning about 13,000years ago and up to the 1860s. TheInspiration Gallery takes you on atour of technology; agricultural,industrial and energy; immigra-tion and migration; conflict andwar. Remember those lazy wind-mills on route 83 south of Minot;you know, the ones that are mov-ing so slow? Those blades are sobig, the tips of them are moving atalmost 200 mph.

If you are a Baby Boomer, youmight remember the bomb sheltercraze in the 1950s and 60s wheneveryone who had $5,000 in loosecash laying around built their ownpersonal underground bunker to

survive the nuclear Armageddonwe were all expecting. There’s anexhibit for a missile silo, and youwill be glad to know they’veupgraded the computers, and themissile silo command centers nowenjoy flat screen TVs.

The coal we talked about in ouropening paragraph? It is justbelow the surface in most of themining areas, and super heavyequipment called draglines areused to expose the vein of lignite.One swipe of the shovel on one of

these removes 125 cubic yards ofdirt. When the bucket is full it ispulled back with a chain by ahuge tractor, each link of whichweighs 300 pounds.

In the mid-1950s, theMinnesota-based company Louis

& Cyril Kelly designed a maneu-verable self-propelled loader forpoultry farmers. In 1958, theMelrose Manufacturing Co. ofNorth Dakota bought the rights tobuild this machine. The M200was the second model made, andthe name of it was changed in1962, to, yup, the ubiquitousBobcat.

In the new Governor’s exhibithall, the display tells the story ofthe electrification of North Dakota.At one exhibit, you hear therecorded voice of a Minot womanwho was so excited because shehad gotten an electric iron forChristmas. When electric servicewas first available in 1948, shesaid this was “the most wonderfulday of my life” and she ironed allday and it was so much fun. Whenwas the last time you had thatmuch fun? It’s all in one’s per-spective, isn’t it?

Did you know that the U.S.Congress denied and delayedNorth Dakota’s acceptance as astate? Can you guess why? Or thatthe small farmers of North Dakotawere at one time considered underthe control of party bosses and bigbusiness interests fromMinneapolis-St. Paul, who ownedor controlled the banks, the grainmills and the railroads in NorthDakota?

So, did Minot haveTyrannosaurus rex runningaround 65 million years ago? Yes,but the rocks that contain theirfossilized remains are thousandsof feet below the surface. But evenso, where else can you go outsideNorth Dakota and be a weekendpaleontologist? Before you volun-teer, why not make the easy daytrip to Bismarck sometime soon,visit the beautiful Heritage Centerand bone up on some past history?Almost 100,000 visitors alreadyhave, just since the recent renova-tion.

U.S. Highway 83 Southbecomes State Street as you enterBismarck. After you cross I-94, ifyou make no turns, you will findyourself at the parking lotentrance to the museum. It could-n’t be any easier. The HeritageCenter is open from 8 a.m. to 5p.m. Monday through Friday, and10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday andSunday. Admission is free. Andyou can eat good food at reason-able prices in the museum cafeuntil 2 p.m.

LifeE8 Minot (N.D.) Daily News, Sunday, November 23, 2014

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T-rexContinued from Page E1

Photos by Carolyn Ferguson/Special to MDN

¨ Dinosaurs are displayed at the Heritage Center. Long ago, dinosaurs roamed through-out North Dakota and full fossils have been found at different locations in the state.

∂ Paleontologists Jeff Person and Becky Barnes look through some of the fossilshoused at the Heritage Center.