Howe Quarry
The Howe Dinosaur Quarry (flat area near the center of the image) as it appeared in 1984, before Kirby Siber reopened the quarry.
The Howe Dinosaur Quarry is famous amongst paleontologists for the variety and quality of the dinosaur fossils it has produced. It is located several miles north of Shell, Wyoming on private property and is not accessible without owner permission. Fossil bones were first identified in the Jurassic Morrison Formation on land owned by Barker Howe in the 1920s. A local Shell, Wyoming fossil enthusiast who also ran a museum in Shell, Nellie Austin, notified Dr. Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) of the bones in 1932. In 1934, Brown and his crew removed enough dinosaur bones to fill a railroad box car for shipment to the AMNH in New York City. After years of laying dormant, the quarry was reopened by Kirby Siber, a Swiss paleontologist, from the Sauriermuseum in Aathal Switzerland, in the 1990’s the Swiss digs resulted in the discovery of Big Al and Big Al 2 (two of the most complete Allosaurs ever found), a variety of large sauropods, including a species previously unknown to science, and many other amazing fossils.
Barnum Brown with a mounted skeleton of Tyrannosaurus rex at the American Museum of Natural History. Photo courtesy of the AMNH.
Much has been written about Dr. Barnum Brown who gambled, drank, smoked, was a noted ladies man, oilman, spy, and one of the best paleontologists of his generation. Brown was the American Museum of Natural History paleontologist who found and named the first Tyrannosaurus rex. He also discovered the Howe Dinosaur Quarry.
Barnum Brown dressed for the field, early 1900's.
When paleontologist Barnum Brown organized a dinosaur excavation to the Howe property, he initially expected to excavate two skeletons of sauropod dinosaurs—but soon after opening the quarry, the team realized that the site far exceeded their expectations. In the end, they unearthed an estimated 3,000-4,000 bones, of at least 20 animals, and sent more than 140 crates back to the American Museum of Natural History, in New York City. Despite public interest, only a small number of specimens from the site were prepared back in the 1930s, and none of the specimens have yet been scientifically described in detail. Work was resumed in the 2010s, reassembling fragments, identifying bones, searching for original field notes, contacting descendants from those on the 1930s expedition, and determining what species lived in northern Wyoming 150 million years ago (text provided by Carl Mehling, AMNH, 2024 with some modification). For a detailed history of the AMNH expedition and subsequent Kirby Siber expeditions an excellent resource is Tschopp, E., C. Mehling, and M. A. Norell, 2020, Reconstructing the specimens and history of Howe Quarry, Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation; Wyoming, American Museum Novitates, no. 3956, 56 pp.
Photo shows overburden being removed by horse and scraper during the AMNH excavation.
Brown standing with Barker Howe on whose land the Howe Dinosaur Quarry was located. Few paleontologists would wear a starched white shirt in the field. Rather they would likely dress more in the fashion of Mr. Howe.
The above images show a photograph of the surface of bones cleaned of much sediment and a quarry map with many of these bones drawn to scale. The concentration of bones, required extraordinary documentation prior to actual recovery of the bones if the paleontologists had any hope of reconstructing individual dinosaurs. The solution was to grid the bone-bearing surface with string and draw each bone within each square grid, carefully labeling the excavated bone with the appropriate grid location from which they came. The quarry maps were drawn by Roland T. Bird, a novice (at that time) paleontologist employed by Brown. Bird’s quarry maps were drawn in much greater detail than any other quarry map before and have served as a standard for fossil quarry documentation since.
Besides bones and dinosaur footprints discovered in the Howe Quarry, dinosaur skin impressions were also preserved. This photo shows the impression of sauropod skin preserved in mudstone that surrounded a bone excavated from the original Howe Quarry by the AMNH.
The Howe Quarry remained largely dormant until 1990 when a crew from Switzerland under paleontologist Kirby Siber reopened the original Howe Quarry. After removing several hundred bones from the original bone bed, the crew discovered several additional bone beds at different stratigraphic levels in the immediate vicinity and continued excavations until 2003. Among their most significant discoveries were the allosaurs, Big Al and Big Al 2. Big Al, as it turned out, was barely on federal land and subsequently was recovered by the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, which now houses the original bones. Both Big Al allosaurs were incredibly well preserved and nearly complete, with Big Al 2 somewhat more complete than Big Al. The bones of Big Al 2 currently reside in the Sauriermuseum in Aathal, Switzerland.
Full body casts of Big Al are on display at the University of Wyoming Geological Museum and Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, MT, which also houses the original bones. Of all of the famous and spectacular dinosaur bones from the Greybull/Shell area, these reside closest to the Big Horn Basin. For more information see story in Cowboy State Daily by Andrew Rossi, (November 8, 2023).
This is the way Big Al looked in the rock that contained him. It is often referred to as a “decay” or “death” pose with the head arched over the back. Photo from Craig Dylke and downloaded from Scientificstudent.wordpress.com.
This cast of Big Al is on display at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Photo by John Gnida (Google).
Images of Big Al 2’s skull as prepared and with a flesh-on reconstruction with the artist Mike Berglund who created it. Images used with permission of Black Hills Institute
The original skeleton of Big Al 2 as displayed at the Sauriermuseum in Aathal, Switzerland. Images used with permission of Black Hills Institute.
Other incredible dinosaurs recovered from quarries near the Howe Quarry include the diplodocid sauropod Kaatedocus siberi, the first sauropod identified with frills on its back. This animal is currently on display in Switzerland.
The Kaatedocus siberi is named for Kirby Siber, the Swiss paleontologist who discovered it. Image from https://novataxa.blogspot.com/2012/12/2012-kaatedocus-siberi.html
Artwork shows the artist Davide Bonadonna’s reconstruction of the Kaatedocus siberi (https://m.facebook.com/AllThingsDinosaurs/photos/a.426652284096712/2687562014672383/).
Most, if not all, of the fossilized animals found near or in the Howe Dinosaur Quarry were thought to have died in quicksand in dried up riverbeds or died in flooding rivers with their bones reworked after death and transported as the rivers were flooding. These deposits indicate the Morrison Formation in which they were found formed in a seasonally arid climate much like what one sees the African savannah is today.
Dr. Emanuel Tschopp, Universität Hamburg who named the new fossil, is shown seating in an area not too far from where K. siberi was found.
The dinosaur discoveries in the Greybull/Shell area have impacted local and corporate cultures. Sinclair Oil funded the AMNH Howe Dinosaur Quarry expedition in the 1934 and its corporate logo and corporate history reflects that legacy. With regards to local culture, From at least 1938 to 1959, Greybull’s Junior High School was know as the home of the Greybull Dinosaurs. This choice of mascot was no doubt driven, at least in part, by the pride of knowing that Greybull was so closely linked to the Howe Dinosaur Quarry and the national and international attention garnered from the discoveries. This banner was one of several saved from the discard pile by Sherrie Asp Winkler. The memory of the depth of Greybull’s public school connection to the Howe Dinosaur Quarry would have completely disappeared without Sherrie’s passion to preserve Greybull’s history.
The discovery of the Allosaurus dubbed Big Al by Swiss paleontologist, Kirby Siber in 1991 in a site very close to the Howe Dinosaur Quarry, was perhaps the best preserved Allosaurus ever discovered. That is until the discovery of Big Al 2 a short time later by the same Swiss crew. The preserved bones of Big Al showed that he had suffered multiple injuries and wounds during its life. Big Al was so well preserved and subsequently studied that he became the subject of multiple documentaries and movies as well as children’s books.
Multiple other publications connect the Howe Dinosaur Quarry, its nearby excavations, and the personalities that are connected to the quarries. These include National Geographic Magazine, Discovery, and numerous travel guides.