Today we went to the Natural History Museum at East Tennessee State in Johnson City. Libby read over the weekend of a new exhibit there of "the largest, most complete, and best preserved T. rex fossil ever discovered." The place was awesome; the T. rex was awesome; the whole trip was awesome, all according to Briggs (we even had pizza for supper after we got home). The assembled T. rex skeleton was pretty incredible. There were plenty of hands-on exhibits for all ages. We also watched a short film about the site, and then got to do some pretend digging for bones. Finally, though it was cold, we got to go outside and see the actual site where the ETSU folks do their digging.
To be clear: Sue, the T. rex, was found in South Dakota, by a paleontologist named Sue Hendrickson. The fossil was ultimately purchased by The Field Museum in Chicago. ETSU has the exhibit on loan through April. There is however a Miocene era dig in progress in Gray. They have found lots of bones near what was once a watering hole. It was nearly paved over by Suncrest Drive, but work was halted, re-routed, and the site secured by ETSU. The university then established an entire department to begin unearthing the site. The T. rex exhibit is no doubt a coup for this smallish department and school, but it was really drawing a crowd today. It was well worth the travel for us; I think everyone learned a little something. Briggs for sure had a blast and was turned on even more (if that's possible) to the world of dinosaurs!
(The museum had a really nice white, yellow and red logo/design (lower left of the graphic above) for the exhibit (signage, promo items, etc.) but I couldn't find it anywhere on their site; I had to make do with this rather bland B&W rendering above.)
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