Moving a 69-million-year-old dinosaur skull requires patience, care, and — it turns out — a little superglue. Thankfully all three were on hand as fossil restorers returned the skull of Pops the Triceratops to its permanent home at the Weld County Administration Building on Tuesday.
Nearly two-and-a-half years ago, Weld County’s most famous dinosaur fossil was whisked away for some long overdue paleontological pampering. The skull was cleaned up by fossil preparators at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science fossil preparation lab. Then it was restored and expertly cast by world-class fossil restorer Rob Gaston, who works out of his studio in Fruita, Colorado.
On Tuesday, the fossil made the trip from the Western Slope back to its home in Weld County, in the back of a white delivery van, where unfortunately, part of the dinosaur’s snout broke off during the trip home.
“That just vibrated off on the way over here,” Gaston explained.
In front of the entry to the Weld County Administration Building, Gaston had bigger things to worry about, though, like how he would be able to get the fossil through a set of doors too narrow for the fossil’s protective plaster jacket.
Members of the Weld County facilities team provided the muscle to hoist, shift, scootch and maneuver the heavy fossil into the building, and ultimately, lift it into place in a sleek, new custom display in the center of the lobby.
“Man, when I was young, I was so into dinosaurs,” said Weld County Ground Supervisor Jim Kron, who never imagined dinosaur handling would be part of his job description, but was delighted nonetheless when it came up. “This is cool."
The dinosaur by the bathrooms
Pops' triumphant homecoming was especially significant because it was years in the making. For decades, Pops the Triceratops was the dinosaur lost to science.
Paleontologists found the skull in 1982, on the Seven Cross Ranch, northeast of Greeley. But they neglected to communicate with the landowner, businessman and former state senator Sonny Mapelli, before removing the skull from his property.
Mapelli was miffed, and claimed the fossil for himself before donating it to Weld County on the condition that it always remain in a county building for the public to see.
The donation frustrated paleontologists’ plans to clean and study the specimen for more than 40 years. As time passed, Pops remained untouched in an increasingly dated display case in the lobby of the Weld County Administration Building.
“In a not-so-dignified way, it was how we told people where the restrooms were,” Finch said, shortly after the fossil was taken for cleaning in late 2020. “We'd tell them, ‘Go out to the lobby, and they're right by the dinosaur.'”
Pops’ next chapter
In late 2020, the county reached a deal with paleontologists at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Pops would finally get the scientific attention it deserved, and at the same time, experts would finally have a chance to properly clean up the specimen and restore it according to modern standards.
“When we got it back to the museum, we had to take a lot of plaster and chicken wire and paint off of the original fossil,” said fossil preparator Salvador Bastien, with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. “The whole back of the skull was unprepared.”
Bastien spent months carefully removing plaster and debris to uncover the surfaces of the bone.
“It was super satisfying to see the braincase on the backside,” he said.
As paleontologists slowly got a better look at the geometry and makeup of the bone, they began to suspect that Pops wasn’t a triceratops at all, but a much older ancestor called an eotriceratops — or perhaps even an entirely new species as yet not described by science.
But science is slow.
“We’re still working on that,” Denver Museum of Nature and Science fossil preparator Natalie Toth said of the many steps involved in definitively identifying the species. “We have to have all the prep completed with a little bow on top, so to speak, and have all of the features and everything exposed on the dinosaur before we can start honing in on exactly where it fits on the horned dinosaur family tree.”
That prep work is now completed. Toth said the next step would be looking more closely at the spot where the skull was removed from the ground.
“We’ll be able to dial in exactly what part of the rock record it’s from,” she said.
From the museum’s fossil preparation lab, Pops’ next stop was the studio of world-class fossil restorer Rob Gaston in Fruita. Gaston and his wife, Elisa Uribe Gaston, spent several more months with Pops. They worked on the joints where broken sections of the bone were reconstructed — adding texture and paint to camouflage the cracks. Gaston’s team also created a resin cast of the skull that can more easily be handled and moved.
When all that work was done, the fossil was ready to come home.
A more dignified home
Back at the Weld County Administration Building on Tuesday, Rob Gaston was breathing a sigh of relief after Pops was lifted upright and finally placed in position on the sleek, new, purpose-built fossil stand opposite the main doors of the lobby.
He admitted that his years of handling ancient fossils didn’t make this task any less nerve-wracking.
“I mean, if something slips, pops loose, then you could lose the whole thing,” he said.
But the issue of the broken snout remained. That’s where the superglue entered the story. With Pops was safely on the stand, fossil preparators Toth and Bastien moved in with their epoxies and adhesives to piece the skull back together.
“I think it's funny because you think about a 69-plus-million-year-old, delicate fossil,” Finch marveled, as she watched them work. “And here you’ve got bungee straps and superglue and we just slap it back together.”
The public will be invited to celebrate Pops’ return at an event at the Weld County Administration Building on April 21.
