"Hey, this is kind of interesting."

Mr. Kevin Quick, a science department faculty member and assistant on our summer Peccary Trip, handed me a fist-sized rock cobble with a piece of fossil bone poking out of the side.

"Where did you find that?!" I exclaimed. Seeing a distinctive dimpled texture on the bone's surface, I was definitely intrigued. Not only was it from a crocodile, it was a piece of crocodile skull! A very rare find, indeed.

This is just one snapshot of a day collecting fossils in southern Utah. Every summer, Alf Museum staff, Webb faculty, students, and volunteers make the trek from Claremont to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. As one of the last, great, unexplored dinosaur deposits in the continental United States, a major find could turn up at any time. In 2004, a museum volunteer found the skull of a new species of dinosaur. In 2005, a Webb student discovered the partial skeleton of a previously unknown tyrannosaur. And just a few weeks ago, this non-descript piece of rock added another important dimension to our knowledge of Earth's past.

Although our primary purpose is scientific, these summer Peccary Trips (named after a peccary, or pig, skull found on an early expedition) also offer important life lessons for our Webb students. We have to hike several miles across some of Utah's most remote and rugged terrain just to get to the edge of the fossil beds. This effort isn't purely physical - it also takes a mental toughness to push through to the end. Even the students who have never camped or hiked in such conditions before quickly rise to the challenge. In the pursuit of discovering fossils, students learn perseverance and the importance of teamwork, and this new crocodile find would prove to be a great challenge.

The cobble of rock had a relatively fresh broken surface, so more bone had to be out there somewhere. One of the most basic rules of fossil collecting is to always follow the bone uphill. In this case, the task was daunting. The original find was found at the bottom of a steep 100-foot high slope covered in brush, loose rock, and mud from a recent rainstorm. The fossil could have come from nearly anywhere!

Recruiting a half-dozen students, Mr. Quick started the arduous task of locating the original bone layer. Literally leaving no stone unturned, they spent nearly two hours on that slope. Searching on the last day of the trip, we didn't have a lot of time, so this could be our only chance to find the rest of the specimen.

Finally, Sam Woodward ’12 found it. A thin lens of sandstone, nearly entirely obscured by loose debris, hosted a big chunk of crocodile skull. Sam and Mr. Quick did a fantastic job of carefully exposing the fossil, using small hand tools and special glues to preserve the delicate bone. I let out a brief exclamation of extreme happiness - this could be a major find!

We only had a few hours left before we had to leave the field, not nearly enough time to properly collect the specimen. Furthermore, I could see that the find was potentially large enough that we would need an excavation permit to continue. Sadly, we will have to endure another long lesson in patience as it won’t be until next year when find out just how much of that crocodile is in the hillside. Somewhat reluctantly, we stabilized the specimen and covered the site for the coming winter.

Mr. Quick, the students, and I are all abuzz about our latest find.  How much of the crocodile skull is there? What kind of crocodile is it? Is it a species new to science? After 75 million years, we'll just have to wait one more year to find out.

For over 70 years, students from Webb have been trekking into the Mojave Desert in search of the long-vanished inhabitants of southern California. In the early days, small groups of boys made the trip with Ray Alf. Now, it's an important part of the freshman year experience, for every single Webbie.

The Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, a nationally accredited and globally known research institution on the Webb campus, is devoted to education and research. Some students come to Webb knowing that they want to be involved in the museum program. But, many know very little about paleontology or why a high school would have a museum. Weekend field trips (known as peccary trips) are a fantastic way to communicate this - and also a way to give kids a taste of real-life science.

On two weekends every year (one for freshman boys and one for freshman girls), students explore the desert near Barstow, California, under the guidance of Webb faculty and Alf Museum paleontologists. As one of those paleontologists, and as an advisor to freshman boys, I can attest that this experience is rewarding for everyone involved. Many of the students are a little anxious prior to the trip. Will it be hot? Will I find anything? Are there snakes? Some students have never camped out under the stars. Although fossils are the focus of the trip, it's also about stepping outside one's comfort zone and trying something new.

A typical freshman trip involves setting up camp and then hiking for a mile or two out to Webb's traditional fossil collecting localities. The students learn how to distinguish between fossil bone and rock (it gets easier with practice), as well as which specimens are collectible for research purposes and which can be left for the next person to find. The fascinating history of southern California is at center stage. Fifteen million years ago, the Mojave Desert was covered by scrubs and grass, and was the home of diminutive horses, giant camels, elephants, and bear-dogs. Horses are by far the most common finds - a little patience and luck can turn up some excellent specimens. One student recently found a perfectly preserved horse hoof, and another a horse jaw. These fossils, a priceless record of our planet's history, are collected and brought back to the museum for study by Webb students as well as outside researchers.

After a day out in the field, it's time to head back to camp. Some of the students help prepare supper (burgers on the grill), followed by s’mores on the campfire and a short talk about Webb's history of fossil collecting. Steve Sittig, one of Webb's science teachers, often brings out some telescopes. Following hours of looking down at the ground for fossils, it's only appropriate to look up to the heavens. With clear skies and little light pollution, sights like Saturn can be spectacular. We sleep out under the stars, waking early the next morning for breakfast, a few more hours of fossil collecting, and then the drive back to campus.

There is something for every student on this trip. Some confirm their dedication to paleontology and Webb's museum program and go on to immerse themselves in the museum's paleontology, museum studies, and research courses. Others have an enjoyable weekend in the outdoors and return with a few stories to tell their friends. As a paleontologist and teacher, its fun to see a student get "turned on" to science. Many kids never know how much they're going to enjoy the trip, until they give it a try. Maybe it was something about the hikes, or the camaraderie, or a particularly well-preserved fossil. No matter what the cause, these students are hooked, and keep coming back for more. This is what the museum program at Webb is really about - a unique, challenging experience that changes the way our students look at the world.

When most people think of a paleontology museum, they imagine displays of dinosaur skeletons with some nice, shiny signage. But, where does the information on these signs come from? Quite simply: paleontologists, the scientists who study life of the past.

Judging by portrayals on television, science requires test tubes, lab coats, and multi-million dollar equipment. Not so in paleontology! Some of the most important information comes from just looking at a fossil, taking measurements, and comparing with other specimens. On top of this, it doesn't take long to reach the limits of our knowledge. There is so much we don't know, and every fossil has the potential to add important new information. For this reason, *anyone* - whether a high school student, professional paleontologist, or amateur collector - can make a major intellectual contribution.

As one of two paleontologists at the Alf Museum (the other is Dr. Don Lofgren), it's a real joy to involve Webb students in every phase of research. No other high school on Earth has a working paleontology museum, and it offers some absolutely unique opportunities. Students are there from the moment of discovery, right up until publication. They have helped to describe new species, presented their work at professional conferences, and collaborated with world-renowned paleontologists from other institutions.

As one example, Webb students Kit Clark ’04 and Ben Scherer ’02 helped describe the first discovery in Utah of a small mammal called Stygimys. This work (co-authored with Don Lofgren and paleontologist Barbara Standhardt) was published in Journal of Mammalian Evolution. Inspired in part by this experience, Kit is now finishing up his graduate studies in geology at University of Nebraska.

Another student, Gy-Su Kim '10, worked on identifying small carnivorous dinosaur teeth that she and other Webb students collected on a summer trip to southern Utah. Gy-Su presented the work at a professional conference, and consequently was invited as a co-author on a book chapter (to be published next year, if all goes well). Among her fossil identifications was the first possible bird tooth known from the state of Utah - a very rare find!

Our students are working on a diverse array of topics - from dinosaur eggshell to elephant jaws to possible fossilized owl pellets. Because paleontology is such a small field, some of our students have literally become the world experts on their topic of study! It's a lot of fun to see their faces when they come to this realization… when they understand that the knowledge they've discovered isn't in any textbook. It's not even in the professional journals. They are the first human beings to make that discovery. How cool is that? Anyone can do science!

Last spring, we learned that the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) office in Hollister, California, was seeking a museum to work an excellent mid-Miocene (15 million year old) vertebrate bone bed in the Temblor Formation of Fresno County, California. The site was discovered in 2004 during construction of a power line paralleling Interstate 5. Subsequent excavations yielded 1,200 fossil specimens which are now housed at UC Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology. A number of rare fossils were unearthed, ranging from three-toed horses to giant tortoises. For the last five years, the site has lain dormant while awaiting the next round of work. The BLM agreed that the Alf Museum could excavate the site, and we are excited as it's an excellent place to bring our students. Bone beds are rare, and they are fun to collect because they are so full of fossils. Webb students get to learn how to quarry, and the specimens recovered will strengthen our collection of Cenozoic vertebrates. It's a good thing for everybody involved.

Thus, the Honors Advanced Study in Paleontology class went to the site on October 24-26 to reopen the bone bed quarry. The bone bed was reburied after the initial excavations in 2004, but photos helped us to relocate the bone bed after a couple of hours of digging. Bone preservation at the site is exceptional and it wasn't long before we were removing horse teeth, camel toe bones, chunks of tortoise shell, and other vertebrate bones. We worked the site for about 12 hours over two days and collected about 100 specimens. We plan to return to the site soon to continue our excavations.

The trip was part of a lesson in the Honors Paleo class where students learn to map a site, take field notes, collect a sample of specimens, and then prepare and curate them back at the museum so they can be placed into the permanent collections of the Alf Museum. On this trip they worked as professional paleontologists--a unique learning experience for our students.

Don Lofgren and I are pleased to report on a successful, educational and fun conclusion to our annual Summer Peccary Trip. Our dedicated crew of faculty, staff, Webb students, and volunteers has once again pushed the boundaries of science through scientifically significant and sometimes spectacular finds. We focused on two areas in particular this year: the 75 million year old Kaiparowits Formation of southern Utah and the 35 million year old Renova Formation of Montana.

A crew of 15 Webb students - representing incoming freshmen, current students, and just-graduated seniors - departed from Webb on Monday, August 27 with Lofgren and faculty members Will Allan, and Kevin Quick, and Kevin’s son, Christian. Students were: Drew Silver ‘12, Brent Silver ‘10, Dakota Santana-Grace ‘11, Cameron Lutz ‘11, John Gunn ‘13, Sam Woodward ‘12, Ben Kissell ‘10, Kevin Terris ‘09, Bryan Yokote ‘09, Lucy Herrero ‘10, Brittany Lamon ‘11, Charlotte Harris ‘12, Rachel Zheng ‘12, Rebecca Lai ‘11, Gy-Su Kim ‘10. The group headed to Montana to collect Eocene (35 myo) mammals at the famous Pipestone Springs site near Butte. All found some nice jaws and Cameron Lutz found a complete tortoise which was jacketed and removed. The group also visited Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman before heading south through Yellowstone and Grand Tetons NPs to southern Utah to meet up with the Farke part of the expedition.

I departed for Utah on Saturday, August 25, with a small crew of volunteers to lay groundwork for the arrival of the main crew on August 4. Our destination: The Lofgren Ranch, immediately adjacent to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. Here, rocks from the end of the age of dinosaurs are exposed in rugged, beautiful badlands. It's one of the last unexplored frontiers for fossils in the lower 48. We opened up the Cripe Site (a quarry that has been worked yearly since 2005) and also identified several other localities for later collection with students assistance. Once the students arrived, we continued prospecting (searching for new sites) and excavating (collecting fossils at previously located sites) with their assistance.

Many hundreds of pounds of fossils were collected, ranging from giant, complete limb bones to tiny teeth. Highlights (many discovered and/or collected by students) included an exquisitely-preserved tyrannosaur thigh bone, portions of a rare turtle skull, and skin impressions from a plant-eating dinosaur. Of course, the best finds are always made at the end of the trip… Kevin Terris found parts of a little skeleton weathering out, on the second to last day of our trip! Unfortunately, we'll have to wait until next year to see how it pans out. Patience may be a virtue, but we'll all be dreaming impatiently of what's currently hidden by rock. On days off, students were able to visit Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, and the world-famous Henrie's Drive-In, among other local wonders.

The educational, scientific, and character-building significance of this trip for the students and the museum cannot be overstated. It was fun to share in the long hikes, quiet nights at camp, latrine digging, unexpected downpours, and the thrill of discovery with such a great bunch of kids! Special thanks are due to Will Allan, Kevin Quick, and Thea Hinkle '05, for all of their help with making this a fun, safe, and successful experience. I can hardly wait to see what next year brings!