The Howe Quarry area: A historic hotspot for sauropod research in the Morrison Formation.
The Howe Quarry. A quarry in the northwestern corner of Wyoming, about 150 km east of Yellowstone Park at the western foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. It was first discovered in 1932 by Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History. Accompanied by a large team Barnum dug for 6 months und unearthed a massive amount of 5000 bones of diplodocid Sauropods. Its sheer quantity led to the famous bone map being incorporated into many text books. After which the quarry was closed due to unfortunate circumstances.
The Quarry was later reopened in 1990 by H. J. Siber, founder of the Dinosauriermuseum Aathal. He and his team worked in the quarry for every summer in the following 15 years. The first 2 years only the original quarry was excavated, but in following years 5 new sites were discovered covering an area of approximately 500 m in diameter. All these areas pertained different levels of the Morrison Formation.
Beside 2 Allosaurs, 3 Stegosaurs and 3 Otheneliosaurs, at least 8 species of Sauropods were discovered. Some skeletons being very complete or even representing some new species. Of which the descriptions of Kaatedocus siberi and Galeamopus pabsti are already published. On top of this, a most exceptional find was discovered. A Sauropod baby which was named: “Toni”.
Biography Ben Pabst
Ben Pabst is a well-known and praised paleontologist associated to the Sauriermuseum Aathal (Switzerland), born in Vienna (Austria) in 1949. At a young age of 7, Ben had already collected his first fossil, which sparked the love for (paleo)biology. Ben followed-up by studying biology and completing his doctoral thesis at the University of Zurich in 1978. In the decades to follow Ben worked as a paleontologist. First as a self-employed paleontologist, but since 1990 co-working with H.J. Siber and the Sauriermuseum Aathal. Since 2004 Ben has been the head of the digging team in Frick, with a total of 60 Plateosaurs and 3 Theropods that have been found to date.