By DAN BLAKE
Since 1993, an instrument known as a dinosaur-bone finder has helped discover the bones of three dinosaurs.
The instrument was invented by Ray Jones, radiation analyst with the Radiological Health Department at the University of Utah.
Having something that tells where the bone is helps a lot, Jones said.
'If you have to dig every bit of ground, you're in trouble,' he said.
Jones invented the dinosaur-bone finder by modifying some radiological equipment. Dinosaur bones have a concentration of uranium, and radiological instruments can detect the right uranium levels when they are modified.
People have tried to make a similar device before, but Jones is the first to be successful, he said.
Jones has helped find dinosaur bones at the College of Eastern Utah's Carroll site in Emery County since 1993.
'It's worked really well down there,' Jones said.
Having equipment to help find bones during excavation is very helpful, said Don Burge, excavator of the Carroll site and director of the Prehistoric Museum and professor of paleontology and geology at the College of Eastern Utah.
A hadrosaur (duckbill dinosaur) was found in 1993 using the instrument, and it was one of the oldest hadrosaurs ever found, Jones said. In 1995, a nodosaur was also found.
The hadrosaur may help provide some evolutionary links because it is from the Jurassic period, and hadrosaurs are usually only found later, in the Cretaceous period, Jones said. Many dinosaurs became extinct between the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and studying the hadrosaur may help explain some events.
Last summer the instrument helped find a skull that was the only part missing from a nearly complete dinosaur skeleton, Jones said.
The process of excavating dinosaur bones is often a complicated process and other problems exist beyond finding the bones, said Ken Stadtman, curator and general manager of the BYU Earth Science Museum.
'The main problems we face are because those bones have been carried by a river and they're all piled up,' Stadtman said. 'It's like playing a game of pick-up sticks, and we're playing with dinosaur bones.'
This makes finding complete dinosaurs difficult because the bones are separated and mixed with the bones of other dinosaurs, Stadtman said.
The hardness of the rock surrounding fossil bones also complicates the excavation process, Stadtman said. In extracting the bones, enough rock is left around them to help keep them intact until they can be looked at in a lab.
BYU has two large excavation sites for finding dinosaur bones. The Dalton Well site in Moab has mostly Cretaceous bones, Stadtman said. Most Cretaceous sites are on other continents, so this site has helped in learning about dinosaurs in the United States.
Another BYU site is the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry in Colorado, Stadtman said. Most of the bones found at Dry Mesa are from the Jurassic period.
BYU has a collection of 15,000 bones from dinosaurs and other vertebrates, which is comparable to many other museums, Stadtman said.
Some of these bones are displayed at the Earth Science Museum across from Cougar Stadium at 1683 N. Canyon Road. The museum is free and open to the public.
Bones are usually displayed in the Eyring Science Center, but it is under construction. The larger dinosaur bones are stored under Cougar Stadium.