{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/kk94749158/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Jim Diffily"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/713/original/aviary_default_logo.png?1751992923","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eDiffily, Jim. Interview by Christina Hardman. Paluxysaurus jonesi. June 16, 2025. Paleontological Oral History Program/Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Fort Worth, Texas.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Duration"]},"value":{"en":["01:13:28"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Fort Worth Museum of Science and History"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Jim Diffily (Interviewee)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2025-06-16 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThe former Vice President of Collections and Exhibitions for the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Diffily recalls the discovery of fossilized bone on the property of a Texas rancher that initiated a pivotal partnership between the museum and SMU. This partnership expanded through a series of excavations, including the Jones Ranch project, where the team later identified Paluxysaurus jonesi.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MP4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["FWMSHPOHJD001 (other)"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThe former Vice President of Collections and Exhibitions for the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Diffily recalls the discovery of fossilized bone on the property of a Texas rancher that initiated a pivotal partnership between the museum and SMU. This partnership expanded through a series of excavations, including the Jones Ranch project, where the team later identified Paluxysaurus jonesi.\u003c/p\u003e"]},"provider":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Fort Worth Museum of Science and History"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Fort Worth Museum of Science and History"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/713/original/aviary_default_logo.png?1751992923","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/305/560/small/data?1773952157","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - FWMSH Paleontological Oral History Program: Jim Diffily"]},"duration":4408.0,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/305/560/small/data?1773952157","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si7qYqMn2ts","type":"Video","format":"video/youtube","duration":4408.0,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Jim Diffily [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, Fort Worth, Texas. An interview with Jim Diffily, June 16, 2025. Paleontological Oral history Program.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=0.0,7.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e I'm Jim Diffily. I worked at the museum from 1970 to 2008, I believe. So my whole career was spent at this one institution. I started as a live animal keeper and eventually curator and vice president of collections. So it was a wonderful, wonderful experience. And the thing about the job that was great was it changed constantly and these dinosaurs was another big change that opened a whole new avenue and just kept the job fascinating and interesting. I am retired. I’ve been retired for 17 years and love every minute of it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=7.0,58.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e What are you doing in your retirement?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=58.0,66.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e I inherited some orchids from my mother and enjoyed them and built a greenhouse and joined the Orchid Society. At one of the first shows, I worked with the judges from the American Orchard Society. I thought, I could do that. So I joined the judging program, became a student judge, and now I'm an accredited judge with AOS and travel around Central South America and the U.S. Judging orchids. So just somehting fun to do in retirement. And it's a good excuse to travel. And I live on a 12-acre property, so we're keeping that up. I have a big vegetable garden and a green house and shop.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=66.0,104.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e Could you talk more about your time at the museum?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=104.0,111.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, I started as a part-time live animal keeper in high school, and then got the full-time animal keeper job, and then an assistant curator job, and eventually worked up to curator, and when Bill Voss transitioned into a different role at the museum. Worked really closely with Anne Herndon, and a lot of the teacher professional development. My job was basically as a naturalist, kind of a jack of all trades in natural history. I did a lot of work with the Museum School, teaching classes and working with the museum preschool. Just like Leishawn does now, doing all the lectures for the different groups using the live animals. My education is in geology, a geologist by training. So I pretty much covered all aspects of natural history and part of that was people bringing things to the museum. And 1987 a fella named Thad Williams showed up with a beautiful chocolate brown fossilized bone and that was the Doss tenontosaurus and that started the whole dinosaur episode in the museum's history and my career.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=111.0,194.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e Could you walk through he timeline of how the museum went from Tenontosaurus to Paluxysaurus?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=194.0,202.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e Sure. So I didn't really have much experience with vertebrate fossils. I was very familiar with the marine fossils and that was one of the things that we did in the science department is identify things for people that just show up. And so the fellow walked in and he's a cowboy, big cowboy hat on and he had his young son with him, Thad, and his name...the dad was Ted Williams and the son was Thad and that one was about seven or eight. And they had Ted had a hunting lease on a big ranch in Western Parker County, the Doss Ranch. And Ted was a science teacher in Millsap ISD, either high school or junior high school. And he and Thad were just out walking up his dry creek bed, Lit Branch. And in the sandy bank there was a side view of the skull with their lower jaw and the teeth and the eye socket and everything and down in the in the bed of the creek they found you know half a dozen beautiful beautifully preserved chocolate brown bones. So Thad loaded up and came to the museum and uh with one one piece and uh 99 out of 100 are false...false alarms when people think they found them because there's a lot of things out there that look similar but aren't. So I agreed to come out and I met Thad at a little picnic area on Highway 80...180, west of Weatherford and in the back of his pick up he had two dozen beautifully preserved bones. So we went to the site and sure enough, in situ was the skull, all these bones and in the bed of the creek. And I knew it was a dinosaur, I didn't know what kind. So I contacted my colleague, Charles Finsley at the Dallas Museum of Natural History, known Chuck for years, and described what we had found. In particular, some of the tail vertebrae had all these kind of ossified tendons. And Chuck said, “Oh yeah, that sounded like a Tenontosaurus. We have a partial skeleton in our collection that was collected either in Wise or Montague County.” But he wasn't able to come out. He suggested I talk to Louis Jacobs at SMU. So I called Louis, and in typical Louis way, he said, “What makes you think you have a dinosaur?” So I explained where it was found and what it looked like. And He and Dale and his staff were getting ready to head to the southern Rift Valley in Africa to the country of Malawi to explore, to prospect, and actually do some digging. So they had just a very little time to come out, but sure enough they came out and identified as a Tenontosaurus. As far as the species, it could easily be something new, and advised on setting up the dig. This was an unusual dig, because we were basically plaster mining bones out of a creek bed, out of this creek sediments. And so it was a matter of laying out a grid system, 10 meter grid system all down the creek, all numbered, and so that we could...we could place in at least two dimensions every bone that was excavated. And it was fun because Dorothy Doss, the wife, came out and worked with us almost every time we were out there. It was great. She just loved it. So it was my job to go in and convince James Doss who was a banker in Weatherford that the best thing to do with the skeleton was to give it to the museum. And I was able to accomplish that and they donated it. So that kind of started our relationship and partnership with SMU, because we contracted with them to prepare the specimen. They were interested in the scientific information from it, but in order to do that, it had to be prepared. So we subsidized, we gave them some money to help speed the whole process up, because we were very interested in getting a dinosaur articulated and added to our other dinosaurs in our geology exhibits. So Kent Newman at SMU did the preparation and Dale and Louis did the research and described it as a new species. And started a really good trend of naming it after the donor, the landowner. So Tenontosaurus dossi named after James and Dorothy Doss. And when the specimen was all prepared and all the scientific work was done, I hired Marty Lewis, who was just retiring from the Museum of Natural History in Washington. He was their preparator for decades. And he moved to Sarasota, Florida, so we shipped the bones to him and he articulated it and drove it back to Fort Worth in a U-Haul truck and we installed it. So that's the specimen there in the exhibit. But again, that started our relationship with SMU that we...we started a really good professional relationship where everybody could rely on the other community to do exactly what they said they were gonna do. And the Dosses had a cookout at the ranch house out there to introduce us to their neighboring ranch owners so that we could do some prospecting in the valley of Grindstone Creek because there's potential for more. And as that get together, Philip Hobson who had the property farther up on Grindstone Creek on northeast of the town of Garner said, “I've got dinosaurs on my property.” And he said, “In fact someone from the museum came out in the early 1960s and identified it for me but said that they couldn't do anything about it because the bones were encased in multi-ton boulders.” And they didn't have the wherewithal technologically or experience to be able to do anything with it. I'm talking to John Preston, who was Bill Voss’ predecessor curator. But, you know, who's gonna be able to handle a 10-ton boulder. And in fact, when Philip agreed to let us come out and take a look, we had to figure it out and develop techniques. We had to buy specialized equipment. We had buy big hydraulic jacks, all kinds of cribbing. We had excavate the boulders. We had lift them up. We had them buy all the rigging so that a crane could lift this multi-ton boulder out, get it on a trailer, and truck it over to SMU. So again, for the Acrocanthosuarus, the museum, you know, it started the the process of the museum  funding the excavation and the preparation of the specimens. Then SMU did their scientific work and then the specimen belonged to the museum for educational purposes, ideally. So figuring out how to deal with delicate fossils encased in a boulder that is essentially concrete. They took a lot of careful work in figuring out, so I bought rock saws, concrete saws with the big diamond blades. We could cut away this material and then all the chisels for chipping it away. It was technically challenging, but what that did was it made the Paluxysaurus at Jones Ranch possible because we were dealing with the exact same concretionary structures. Prepared us to take on the Jones Ranch, so that's why those first two digs cemented the relationship in partnership with SMU, both of our bonafides. Our interest was in education. Their interest was the scientific taxonomy papers. And so, as we're about to be really mutually beneficial.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=202.0,759.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e Could you talk about Bill and Decie Jones and the Jones Ranch?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=759.0,766.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e Sure. So after...so the Doss Ranch was 1987 and then in 1991 is when they had their get together and we went out to Philip Hobson's place. And in 1993 the Jones Ranch site was known about it had a long history and it had been worked for a couple summers by Jeff Pittman but it turned out to be too difficult. One...one graduate student to work. He got a number of bones out, but not a critical mass for his doctoral dissertation. So he moved on and did his doctorate on tracks. And so the site just kind of languished because it was too big and too difficult. There was no one ready to step up. So that's when... Louis approached us and said, “Hey, we've got this good relationship. I think we could get together and take this on.” And we agreed so he checked with Langston and got his blessing that yeah, we could take over his site and then Don and Louis and Dale and I...I think the four of us went down and met with Bill and Decie. And Bill was disappointed that the things that had been excavated by UT just went into the collection. Never to be seen again by the public. And his main interest was if we got in there and worked that site, that he wanted the public to benefit from it and not just the scientific community. And so, yeah, the museum's right there, you bet. We're gonna do lots for the public and what transpired for teachers, which made him a very happy man. Louis could always get Bill Jones to shed a tear when he said, he would say, “Bill, tell us what teachers mean to you.” And he'd get teary-eyed and he said, “They saved me.” And when we did the institutes, he loved it. He loved every minute of it. That all those teachers were there on his property, gaining that wonderful experience and knowledge. So he was all for it. When he knew that the museum wanted to use it for education, exhibits, and the scientists wanted to do the science, he was all for it. And in a lot of parts of the country, I mean, they go to the highest bidder. They're not given to science. But you can argue that they really don't have much worth. The worth is the amount of time and effort of getting them out and doing something with them in the ground or ore that has to be processed. Anyway, so Bill and Decie, they were on board from the very beginning and loved whenever we came down. And we spent a lot of time there, months and months and months camped out, having wonderful campfires in the evening. They'd come down and eat with us, and Decie would cook dishes and bring them down and contribute to the meals. And it was just a great, great relationship. And they became really dear friends.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=766.0,995.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e Do you know how long the Jones family owned the ranch?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=995.0,1003.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e It was generational. So back, back...um...So in the 30s, just to make a little extra money, a lot of folks would go out and find and collect the petrified wood, which was used in a lot of the stone buildings built at that time throughout, you know... Stephenville at one of the old nurseries there had a great stone building filled with petrified wood. And it was some petrified wood hunters that first found the bones. And somehow or other OU heard about it and came down and that's when Langston saw it in 1939 and then he got...after the war he got back out there in in ‘47 and thought um yeah I need to I need a do something with this and when he...he went to California and then when he came back to UT he thought okay now it's it's time to go out there and do something with it. And I guess that was in the 50s sometime, couldn't find it. Could not find the site. And so he looked off and on when he was out there in field work through the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I think it was in the late 70s that one of the students jumped the fence and came onto the Jones Ranch and refound it. It was pretty interesting, the saga.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=1003.0,1094.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e What is the geological significance of the Jones Ranch? What made it such a good spot for fossil preservation?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=1094.0,1101.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e What’s really interesting is to find dinosaurs, you have to have the right age rock because they only live for a certain period of time and you have to have the right kind of rock. So late Cretaceous is the third period of the age of dinosaurs. Many, many deposits around the world of Late Cretaceous. Oh the T-rex in Montana, the Hell's Creek Formation. But there's very few places in the world where there are the right kinds of sediments from the Early Cretaceous. So a little spot up in Maryland called the Arundel Formation. There are some spots in Eastern China and a few others, but not much. So north central Texas is the right kind of sediment from the Early Cretaceous period. And dinosaur fossils have been found for, you know, over a century around here. In fact, R.T. Hill, back in the late 1800s, was doing a geological kind of survey across Texas, coming across on the Texas and Pacific line, which goes through the Doss Ranch site. And his field notes say that he found a number of dinosaur bones in the dinosaur sands right there. And they were shipped back East and lost their history. So all we have is his field note saying that he found dinosaur bones and the dinosaur sands. And it was right near Lambert Switch, which is about a mile east of the Doss Ranch site. So he discovered in the late 1800s bones there. So the history goes way back. And then a foot was found of a sauropod in Wise County, little bits and pieces here and there, but it wasn't until the Doss discovery and then the five subsequent that happened in the next decade or decade and a half that we really had enough material to realize that, yeah, we have five new species of dinosaur right here in our backyard. So the Doss Tenontosaurus was one. The Acrocanthosaurus was already known. It was described from the Antlers Formation in southeastern Oklahoma. But then the Pawpawsaurus, the nodosaur that was found in Fort Worth; the Protohadros, the hadrosaur found in Arlington; and then the Jones Ranch because it really it was it was known that it was a...it was a...Well, they called it a pleurocoleus, but again, this also meant scientific work realized that no, it was something different, and not only a new species, but a new genus, which was pretty significant. So yeah, very few places in the world where you have the right kind of rock of the right age to have dinosaur fossils, and then it's got to be the luck of them being uncovered by natural processes at the right time that they're discovered. Because there's probably countless that were uncovered and weathered away and are gone, never ever to be seen. So they have to be found. So it was neat that the Doss was found by a child, that the nodosaur, the Pawpawsaurus was found by a young man. A number of these things have been found by just regular folks, And Louis and Dale had the smarts to name them all after the the discoverers and or landowners. So makes a difference.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=1101.0,1350.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e What were your thoughts when it was suggested that this was a new genus?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=1350.0,1358.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e Just exciting. When you're uncovering the bone, you're realizing this is the first time it has been in the sunlight for 110...15 million years. And so you're the first person ever to see this thing. And it was just really fascinating, not only uncovering, you know, the bones one after the other, but all the other organisms that lived in that environment, including the trees. And we knew we were really kind of fleshing out the world at that time, and so that we would be able to interpret it. And we did that with the exhibit that we had here for several years, that was funded by the National Science Foundation, Texas Dinosaurs: How do we know? So we took all of that knowledge that we gained from the excavations and did something good with it. But it's exciting, it's fun, and it was fun instilling that excitement into the teachers. Colleen will talk about it...the Lone Star Dinosaur Institutes were fantastic because she got funding to bring in teachers from under-resourced rural schools to do something that would probably change their professional life as science teachers, having that experience. And you know, Colleen and Dale and Louis and I kind of got together and worked it all out so that they got to excavate. They got to go to SMU and participate in the preparation. They got the use the tools, the air scribes. They got to hear about how the scientific research is done and how a new species is determined that it is a new species, how to describe it and how to put it into the literature and then come back to the museum and see how that knowledge is used in teaching, how that knowledge is use in developing exhibits, developing teacher professional development, develop you know writing books, and they get to see the whole picture. And I mean, a lot of universities and museums excavate, but rarely does something go from the ground to the lab to an exhibit in that short a time. So we really had a focus that we were gonna really maximize what we were getting from these excavations.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=1358.0,1533.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e If you think about when Jeff Pittman and Dr. Langston started digging in 1986 to when the fossils were installed in the museum, it is just a little over 20 years.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=1533.0,1541.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e Unheard of. I mean, the University of Utah, under their stadium, has storage facilities that have thousands of jacketed specimens that have never been prepared because it takes a lot of money and a lot resources to do it. So there is a world of information out there still in jackets waiting, waiting to happen and we you know...how many jackets do we still have? Whether they ever get prepared or not, who knows, because enough was prepared to do the scientific work. But there's still really good material there. So who knows.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=1541.0,1593.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e It has been previously noted that you were instrumental in securing funding for this project.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=1593.0,1600.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e I was able to put a line item into my budget field, and we funded the excavations, all the materials. Jones Ranch was a huge undertaking. And again, those steps had to happen to prepare the way. What the museum provided was, again, funding and manpower, because it took thousands of man and woman hours to do that work. We, so we met with Bill and Decie Jones in 1993. And that fall, or early spring of ‘94, the museum was putting on The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. A big blockbuster exhibit in a big tent structure on the grounds. And we wanted to include the dinosaurs of North Texas that we had been working on with SMU. Tenontosaurus, Acrocanthosaurus, Pawpawsaurus, Protohadros. And, we just got permission from Bill and Decie to start working at Jones Ranch. So that fall, we went out quickly with Dr. Phil Murphy, uh, Murray from Tarleton, who was a colleague of Dale and Louis’, and we quickly excavated a kind of a scrappy humerus just to have something to put in The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. And then we started working in earnest that spring. So to gear up we had to buy a lot of equipment, canopies. I had a field kitchen to cook for 20 people, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Coolers, stoves, I mean, shelters, all that stuff. I'd go to the grocery store and fill three or four carts filled with groceries with a dozen ice chests because we provided hot...bacon, eggs, hash browns for breakfast...pancakes. We had all the sandwich fixings for lunch and then big, big evening meals. And we'd have crews of as many as 20 people camped out for a week or two at a time down there, working all day long. And we had folks from all over the country participate in the digs. During that time, there was a festival on in Dallas called the Sun and Stars...Sun and Moon Festival. It was a Japanese-American cultural exchange, and they hired a Broadway producer...Steven Cohen to run that that festival and we participated by doing an exhibit of Japanese folk pottery or something. But anyway Steven was a just a dinosaur nut and so we said, “Steven we've got a dig going on you want to come down and join us?” And he became a regular. He came down two or three times a year to dig with us from his home in New York. And he became very active in the society or the paleontology professional society, the paleo guys, and did fundraising for them and endowed them with some scholarships. Anyway, we had Steven and a lot of other folks who would come down from New York. We had students participate. At one of the day sessions we had students from Tarleton and we had students from Texas A\u0026M Commerce and SMU. And the culture it was fascinating because the Tarleton guys they would sleep in their truck and some of the guys from East Texas would roll up in a blanket by the fire, and then these and the SWU folks have the north face tents. But everybody got along great and it was more fun, but just watching the cultures of the different campuses is kind of fun. So lot of people over...So we dug from 1994 through 2011. 2011 was the last uh kind of formal excavation and then from then on we would we go down well we had reunions of the of the dig volunteers every year until two years ago and then a lot of our core volunteers are dying out. And then Bill Jones passed away, so I guess we had our last one about two years ago.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=1600.0,1917.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e In your opinion, what was the biggest challenge to the excavation project?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=1917.0,1924.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh...the logistics of it all, because most of the time Dale and I didn't get to do much excavating. We were working the whole time just keeping it...keeping it going. So Dale, he kept the field notes and every element removed from the quarry was mapped in three-dimensional space. And it was really basic stuff. We had a vertical horizontal datum and a vertical datum and you measure next to the coordinates from those data points. And you can fix that point on, if you have a humerus, you can pick a fix a point at the distal end and give the coordinates for that. And then you give the angle that's out from horizontal, and then you give the compass direction of the main axis. And with those numbers, you can map it in three-dimensional space. Dale was working on mapping and field notes all day long. And I was busy. We had a constant influx of new volunteers, and everyone had to be trained to excavate properly and not do any damage. So after a while I had a core of very experienced volunteers and you’d pair up a new person with an experienced person. But it was constantly you know going around and checking this and that and then you know we'd be excavating over here, we have things that are uncovered over here, so you have to use the proper techniques of...You uncovered something, you let is dry out a little bit, you harden it, you cap it. And then you work around, and you cap it some more, and around, and so nothing is exposed to the elements long at all. It's always capped and covered and protected. And then you work your way around the whole mass, then you have to deal with getting it out. So it was, it was a...things were in constant flux of new discoveries, you know, working this one out, capping and jacketing this one and getting that one out and move to just...just a constant cycle of all that work. Plus, as we worked way into the deposit...the whole deposit was a meter and a half or so thick and headed into the hill. Well, as we worked our way in, we had started having to deal with the overburden. So David McCauley from the museum exhibit department, who could do anything, and I would hire backhoes and David would come down and he would work with us. He could put the tooth of that backhoe within an inch of where we wanted. And you had to uncover a new section and then it worked your way down through and then uncover a new section. And after a while, it had to be done in two stages. You had to remove the top stage and then you had to work, you know....So we were removed...tons and tons and tons, hundreds of yards of material because the site originated as just two little gullies on a hillside and ended up with a...you know, have you ever been there?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=1924.0,2155.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e I have seen pictures, but I am certain that they do not do it justice.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=2155.0,2163.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, and then so it opened up to be a big, really a large half of a size field, uh, football field area. So just the logistics of it. So that was the challenge, just to keep it all running smoothly and having enough food to feed everyone and having a enough plaster and enough burlap and enough toilet paper. So early on, when we started this, one of the public relations people from Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant came over and volunteered that they could provide us with the chemical toilets for the digs, just as something that they can do. Well, great! So I'd go over to Comanche Peak and pick up a blue room, is what they were called, but after the first year, my welcome was wearing thin. Not with the higher-ups, but with the people who had to deal with the blue room. So that's when I built an outhouse at my house. My neighbors were wondering what it was, and they finally figured it out when the half-moon appeared in the door. But it was a chemical toilet that we brought down there to stay permanently and that worked out for us. All the logistics. Just keeping it all moving smoothly.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=2163.0,2251.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e What do you consider to be the most significant success of the excavation?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=2251.0,2259.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, again, it's... It sort of benefited everyone. Because the Joneses couldn't have been happier about the whole experience. Bill loved it when we came down. So I'd usually come down a day early to get set up. And usually allocate two or three hours to sit and talk with Bill. Because he'd love to talk. And that was all part of it is just establishing those good relationships and getting all set up for the day. Um, so the Joneses couldn't have been happier with the, with the outcome. The museum benefited in so many ways because of our mission. So now I started out just doing some workshops through the museum school, but after the first two or three years, that's when Colleen uh was really starting to do the more involved institutes. And so we worked up that Lone Star Dinosaur Institute and I think that was just just a model of really good practices for teacher professional development. The scientific, I mean, these are new species of dinosaur, kind of filling out our knowledge of Early Cretaceous times, because again, there were very, very few early Cretaceous specimens of any kind. And then being able to articulate it. And that quickly go from the ground to an articulated specimen was just great. And it was Rob Reed and Eric Fincher and Gary Lovett who owned the company at the time you know it was a huge undertaking because again they were thinking it was going to be relatively straightforward, modify this Brachiosaurus skeleton to fill in the missing pieces and put as much of the real material in as possible. But, you know, it turned out not to be the case, so we pretty much fabricated everything that was missing, except we got to reuse the Brachiosaurus ribs. They turned out to be about 24 inches too short, so I devised a technique of cutting them in half and then putting in metal rods to lengthen them and then they made forms and use expanding foam to make the core and then cover them and have these latex pads with the surface of the bone that you press into that softened material to texture them and we had an artist in the team that was painting everything. So, you know, if you look at the Paluxysaurus skeleton, you can't tell what's what. So anyway, yeah, the thing just worked out great for everybody, the scientists, the donor, the museum, teachers, it was just a really good experience.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=2259.0,2453.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e What are your thoughts on the controversy surrounding whether Paluxysaurus jonesi should be identified as Sauroposeidon?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=2453.0,2461.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e It's really in my eyes, not a controversy, it's just the normal, the normal process. And the last I talked to Louis, he talked to the author of the Sauroposeidon paper and he's coming around to agree that no, Paluxysaurus probably is the more valid name. And he just, and Louis...he just needed the time to do something. So in the scientific community, there's no controversy. It's just the normal course of events is the way taxonomy works. And yeah, it was really disappointing for Bill and Decie. But at the last time I talked to Decie, I said, “You know, Decie, the name could easily be revived. And that Paluxysaurus jonesi will always be in the literature whether it is the valid name of the dinosaur at the moment or a synonym.” But it doesn't diminish anything of the Jones' contribution and the acknowledgement of their contribution and the honor of having something named after them because the name will always be in the literature whether it's the current name something right now or not. So it's no big deal and things come around. Well, I'm an orchid judge and about 15 years ago, it was a major revision of genera based on the data, the DNA. And beloved names went away. And the gnashing of the teeth and the pulling of the hair was incredible. But if your allocation is based on the science, that's the...that’s the way of science and so you adapt.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=2461.0,2578.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e It creates an opportunity to discuss the misconception that scientific understanding is concrete and never evolves.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=2578.0,2586.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e And just the opposite is true, that it is fluid. There have to be rules and priority, whether it's a month or a day, then publication dates. And a lot of stuff has to be worked out, but that's just the way it works. So there was no consternation in the scientific community. It's just the way of things.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=2586.0,2617.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e Could you talk about your role in the articulation of Paluxysuarus?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=2617.0,2625.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e So when the museum was, was uh, put down RFPs to get this thing articulated, um, Robert Reed Studios and in conjunction with, with uh, uh, Azle Models, they, they put in a, in a reasonable bid. But again, Rob was basing that on the fact that he thought he could not have to make from scratch the missing pieces, but modify a related dinosaur. And he got a really good deal on a fiberglass skeleton Brachiosaurus. So about that time, I retired. And again, they were running into problems almost immediately and calling Dale daily. And Dale is a very, very busy man, and he's got a lot of patience and helped and helped and helped. But finally, he said, this cannot go on. So that's when he suggested that Rob bring me on as a consultant to answer all those questions that they had almost daily. So I went out and started working with them. Couldn't keep my hands off things, so started getting into the thick of it. And so the articulation, it was fascinating. Because as we were articulating, they were still preparing. So as we we're working on posture and stance and what we want it to look like, we had really good limb bones. And we had a lot of vertebrae we knew probably how many of the actual vertebra we could use. But the pelvis was still being prepared in the lab. And in fact, just before I retired, Dale and I spent weeks at the river warehouse with the rock saws whittling on that block, because the pelvis block was the largest block that came out of the quarry.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=2625.0,2769.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e Was that the fossil that they nicknamed Arlene’s Block?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=2769.0,2777.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e It was one of the nicknames, right. But as...so when you find something you go okay I know what that is you back away from it and you work your way down and you see if you can kind of work up to it and see what the limits are. And every time we did that we back away a little more and find some more. And pretty soon we had a blcok that was like 14 feet long and 10 feet wide and 5 feet thick. And we thought there is no way...we cut one section off, but everywhere we tried to cut into the block and break it into smaller pieces, it was just solid. Filled with bone. So we decided, okay, it's gotta come out in one big piece. So for weeks...we finally found the limits and we were able to dig down and start digging under. And so we undercut it as much as we safely could and then build a big wooden cradle to go under it, to support it. And got that all ready to go and then needed a way to get it out of the quarry and get it to a place where a big tractor trailer low boy could park and that was up by the ranch house a quarter mile away. So I had the contract to get an oilfield skid modified and covered with sheet steel so it could be tucked under the cradle and have a DA bulldozer come in with a huge winch to winch the block onto that oilfield skid and then chain it down and then have the bull dozer, drag it out through two drainages and and then um, winch up on to the low boy trailer and then had a crane ordered for the river warehouse to lift it off and into the fenced area. But halfway to Fort Worth, one of the axles on the trailer overheated and blew out a seal. So it had to be taken to the contractor's yard overnight while it was fixed. And I had to call off the crane so that I wasn’t charged for it and order the crane up for the next day. So it was an ordeal getting that out and getting it to some place where it could be worked on. And then it took months to whittle it down small enough so we could put it on smaller trailers and take it to SMU. So that was...that was one of the biggest jobs in the whole quarry. They were they were just finishing and Mike Paulson was scanning it. So he did a scan. And was able...it wasn't 3D printing. I think it was some kind of a...using the numerical data from the scanning that got some kind of a 3D router to route it out of a dense foam material. And then at at the Azle Models we we skinned it and textured it to look like real bone so the pelvis is is foam essentially and then they have the the real one, or we have the real one. So it was an...it was an interesting process where things were still being worked out as we were building it. And then we had to build an armature to support it. So we kind of modeled it after the redoing of the sauropods at the New York Museum of Natural History. And in fact, David did the preliminary work because the first time Paluxysaurus was on display was as a two-dimensional bas relief that David did on a wall in one of the exhibits upstairs in the old museum. And he got his blacksmithing equipment out and black smithed these cradles, these little tendrils of metal that kind of gripped, held in the individual bones. So we used some of that same technique. We had to buy some three-inch round bar and have a water jet slice it in half because you couldn't get a half round anymore. And the half round that you bend has the basic support of the axial skeleton and have these little fingers that come around to hold on to everything. So, Gary Lovett, who's an excellent metal welder, was building the armature as we were making missing pieces or modifying the actual bones. One of the humeri, one of the ends, was essentially missing, so I stood it up and I made an end of carved foam that we again covered with.,,with resins and textured and painted and you cannot tell that some of the ends are are fabricated of the of the real actual fossils. I don't know how many months that articulation took, but it was fun and interesting, and then installing it at the museum here was something else. So scientifically, it is a type specimen. It is the specimen that the name is based on. It is the point of reference for that species of dinosaur. So type specimens are rationed. So here we are, articulating a type specimen, and we did the same thing with Tenontosaurus dossi. But they were done in such a way that they could still be studied and the thing could be easily disarticulated if the need ever arose. So when David moved the skeleton, took it apart, moved it, put it back together. So every piece is accessible, so it's not permanently, you know, taking it away from scientists the ability to study. And it's from the Paluxy River Valley, just down the road.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=2777.0,3250.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e What do you consider to be the legacy of this project for the museum or the field of paleontology?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=3250.0,3258.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e For how to do things the right way, or just the optimal way. And a lot of it was just, you know, the time was right, the circumstances were right, we were ready, SMU was ready, we had generous landowners. And it was just an opportunity that we just took it to as far as we could go with it all. And everybody benefited, so you know, it's kind of a model. And National Science Foundation agreed that this whole business going on here and and the knowledge that was gained from all these excavations, they were willing to pony up $1.2 million for for the exhibit. So you know I just think it's a model of an ideal way that things can go if you know all the...everything falls into place. But then a lot of hard work on the part of a lot of people to do all the different parts of it. I think Gretchen lives across from the street from Dorothy Doss and the visits her occasionally, and they couldn't be happier with the whole process of the Doss Tenontosaurus. And I think Phil Hobson and the Hobson family are happy that something was finally done with their dinosaur that they knew about for decades, but it was technically challenging. Someone finally took it on. And, you know, Cameron Campbell having that Pawpawsaurus named after him. It's pretty neat. And Gary Byrd having that hadrosaur named after him. Very, very cool. And a couple of the dig volunteers had some of the ancillary species that were found named after them. I think one of the little crocodiles was I think named after Alice Murphy. Alice passed away recently. Bill Lowe, one of my key volunteers, he passed away recently and and Bill Jones and John Wilson...yeah a lot of the corps volunteers are passing on so I'm really glad you're getting alot of this.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=3258.0,3407.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e For some of the participants, the excavation was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=3407.0,3415.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e And the camaraderie. I mean, field work of any of any kind, because I did a lot of biological field work earlier on, just getting out in the field and camping with a group of folks with similar interests. It's just fun. And we camped out literally for months. So we dug from, again, 19...what is it? So, from 1994 to 2011, we dug every year. And in the first eight years, we dug five or six times a year, so probably two or three months total down there. So we'd have a campfire every night. The hundreds of cords of wood burned. Luckily, the Jones Ranch included a long stretch of bottomland along Richardson Creek and so a lot of trees you know driftwood kind of trees and the creek. Plus he had some extensive old growth native pecan and they're always shedding limbs so we would do him a favor of cleaning up the down limbs and burn it. So huge bonfires every night. Sitting around, telling stories, drinking some beer. And I would think to myself, I'm actually getting paid to do this. So quite fun. And in later years, all the travel. Because Charlie had us involved in so many national initiatives. So I mean, the senior staff traveled constantly and great fun. A lot of fun.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=3415.0,3533.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e What is your favorite memory of working on the overall project?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=3533.0,3541.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e Again, the friendships and the camaraderie. So we cut down...a pecan tree died and fell over. The big pecan tree. So I cut the trunk up into big sections. And we were having a big campfire one night and somebody rolled one of those things over and heaved it onto the fire and it was hollow. So we had a jet of blue flames coming out out of the center of these logs. I put another one on, so we lifted the second one on and the chimney got higher, and we put a third one. And so we had this massive fire jetting out the top. And we were all sitting around the campfire waiting for it to collapse and see which direction it would fall and ready to scatter. That was fun. Um, digging in the snow. And having a barrel fire going in the middle so you could warm your hands after you had your hands in plaster and were putting on plaster jackets. We dug whenever we had a chance. So yeah, we dug in the snow. It was it was great when David would come out and we get the backhoe and open the new section of the quarry. Because we knew how far down we could dig and then we were within foot of the top of anything might be in the fossil bearing layer. Uncovering some of the trees. So this turned out to be a bone and log jam in a sandy river. And so...so everything was kind of crisscrossed and we had a shoulder blade that was leaned up against the log so it was kind vertical and so uncovering the top of it, “What in the world is that wrong elliptical thing?” And as we worked down it turned out to be just a scapula leaned up against the log. And in chipping away at it...so the presence of the organic material in this sandy sediment that buried the material...the presence of organics changed the chemistry of the water that saturated the sediment and caused calcium carbonate to precipitate out and start cementing it all together. So that's what formed the concretions around the masses of bone and fossilized wood and stuff. So...I forget where I was going with that. So in the quarries, some of the bones were just, were loose, but the majority of them were in these big concretionary structures. So it was a matter of uncovering them, or they would be partially encased in these structures. Oh, I know where I was going. And so in chipping away some of the excess weight so that these things were easier to move is when we discovered the cones of the Pseudofrenelopsis. So the little male pollen cones and then the bigger female cones that Bonnie and her colleagues...along with a lot of the leaves, the pine type needles. And with that material, they were able to kind of reconstruct what the coastal forest or woodland might have looked like. So finding some of those rare fossils. And then finding the the jaw and the teeth because that that's critical because just...just limb bones...I mean Jeff Pitman couldn't do much because he basically had limb bones and they are not diagnostic in scientific work. You've got to have some of the critical elements and when we first found parts of the jaw with teeth that was... The excitement was palpable. Because that that meant okay we we got this nailed. We can figure out exactly where this fits in the in the taxonomy of these of these beasts So those are some of the exciting times. Yeah, and the snow, the fires, the meals.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=3541.0,3834.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e What advice would you give to someone wanting to go into paleontology or museum work?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=3834.0,3842.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e Um. Well, obviously get, you know, get an education background. But volunteer. Just get out there and participate. Yeah, just establish a network of people. Meet as many people as possible, go to the professional organization meetings. I mean you know networking is kind of boring but it's it's the human side of things. Get to know people, volunteer, participate, and hone your skills. You're lucky, I was lucky for this career because, I mean, when you count them up, how many people get to do this? I loved every minute. I mean I just had a...it was the best career. And then my post-career orchids is fascinating and fun.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=3842.0,3911.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e Is there anything else regarding your experience that you feel is important for us to know?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=3911.0,3919.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I've been thinking about the whole thing, you know, for the past couple of days to sort of get my mind ready for these interviews and I don't know, I think the people part of it and the relationships was, you now, the most important. Because, you know, without it, it's not going to work. So SMU and the museum, we both had to know that we could rely on our partners to do exactly what they said they're going to do. And so, yeah, if Louis and Dale said, yeah we're going to do this, they did it. There was never a written contract that I know of. Just trust and handshakes and it all worked out because there's good people involved in the whole thing. So...and we couldn't have without the volunteers. I mean, I hope you can get Wendy or one of the volunteers. But she was one of last of the corps of the volunteers because, God, the amount of time that they put in. Because, again, it was thousands and thousands of hours of work. A lot of it pretty tedious when you get down to it. It was really fun working with those teachers, because they were like... They were like kids and their grandparents. They were funny, they joked constantly. And just teaching them the basic techniques. It's challenging sometimes because you don't know what you're looking at. And one of the groups, you know, they say, \" Well how do I know what I’m looking at?” And I said, “Okay these are the characteristics of bone and this is what you need to watch for as you're scraping these you know sand grains away.” And so they go, “Okay! Come here! Come here!” I go, “Okay so that kind of looks bone-ish so back away from it and work your way down and then kind of work up to it and see if it turns out to be anything.” “Bone-ish! What kind of a scientific term is bone-ish?!” I said, “Just trust me, if it kind of resembles what you think it might be, back away from it, leave it alone, work up to it.” And you had to develop ways of teaching, keep them out of trouble. We had a few volunteers that were just with a trowel just carving away through the cross-section of the…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=3919.0,4098.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, gosh.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=4098.0,4099.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e And so you had to constantly, that's what I did all day, go around and around, check everybody, make sure no one was getting in trouble. And of course, they were mortified and it wasn't too big a deal, but yeah, they carved away. And it was a beautiful cross-section of bone. So this is what you're looking for, this cancellous , spongy cancellous tissue and this...anyway.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=4099.0,4130.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e This work could not have happened without the volunteers.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=4130.0,2037.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e Because there are not enough grad students coming over from SMU and not enough of us. So, I mean, hundreds and hundreds, thousands of hours, I don't know. So we excavated for 18 years. So I can't imagine the number of hours. But see, Dale has meticulous notes. And if it was needed, he could, he can give you the exact dates of every day digging over those years. But that's, I mean, that was his role in this as the, as the lead scientist. And that was a great partnership. He and I, we hit it off and we got along great. And we had our roles and we just did them very smoothly. And the teachers got a kick out of him because Dale was very dry. But funny, he's a funny guy. But, I mean, the digging was the digging. And, you know, it was kind of, I mean, there were exciting times when new things were discovered. And there was a lot of disappointment, because we...David came out one time and really cleared a large area off to the northeast of the quarry. And we had great hopes that those, those rich deposits would continue. I mean, well, again, it was filling out the picture of the community, an animal community, because we got turtles, we got fish, we've got a dog, we have a crocodilian, a lot of really interesting stuff there, but no, no, big finds.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=2037.0,4247.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eINTRODUCTION:\u003c/strong\u003e Charlie Walter mentioned that he had no trouble locating a fossil straight away.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=4247.0,4255.0"},{"id":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560/transcript/92264/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJIM DIFFILY:\u003c/strong\u003e (laughing) Yeah, I remeber! Yeah, he had a beginner's luck. And it's funny, with the Doss Tenontosaurus, that specimen that eroded out of the bank, we prospected a lot. And upstream, we found a tail vertebrae, upstream. So, it's got to be more. And we looked and looked and looked. And the preparator from SMU, Kent Newman, and I, spent a number of days after we got permission from the landowners walking the drain...or Grindstone Creek drainage. Oh the teachers just loved...so when you're out prospecting and if you find something down in the creek, pretty soon you get it you get an eye for what a piece of bone looks like but to verify you touch it to your tongue. And...and then if you find something, you work your way up...up the slopes to see where it's coming from. And the teachers just got the biggest kick out of that. The nice thing about the Jones Ranch quarry is there was just a lot of scrap and so we could give them a little piece of bone to take home with them. And just to stick it to your tongue. It's just so fun, cool, and interesting. One of the groups, during that time, that TV show was at some island, something where you get voted off, that was going on. So they were voting us and each other off the island and you get them away from their students and families, they cut loose. And the evenings were really fun. Like, God, it was hot because we always had to do it in June. And I remember one night it was so hot that I went down and laid in the creek. It was just miserable. You couldn't sleep or wink, but I mean, it all added to the fun of it. And it really made a profound difference to a lot of the teachers. One from Van Horn, after her institute, the next two years, she and her husband would drive to Fort Worth from Van Horn so they could participate in some of the social activities and talk about her time at the Institute. I was just lucky fortunate to be there and to be able to do it, because talk about fun. Fun work.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://fortworthmuseumofscienceandhistory.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3545/collection_resources/168155/file/305560#t=4255.0,4408.0"}]}]}]}