SUU student unearths Tyrannosaur jawbone during dig in Kanab
Kaitlyn Bancroft
All hail the dinosaur king: A Southern Utah University student is preparing a Tyrannosaur jawbone in an on-campus lab after discovering it during a dig in Kanab.
Geology major Jonathan Ginouves unearthed the fossil during his third summer interning for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which spans nearly one million acres in Southern Utah and is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
During one of the final digs of summer 2020, he found a rock that had tumbled into a streambed. He didn't initially have high hopes for the rock, but then he saw it had a row of teeth imprints.
"(That was) immediately exciting because it's not every day that you find a tyrannosaur face," Ginouves said.
Ginouves was given the opportunity to clean the fossil, but since he'd soon begin fall semester at SUU, he'd be unable to travel to Kanab frequently enough to complete the long fossil preparation process.
Instead, he worked with SUU faculty to get lab space on-campus where he can work on the fossil. Equipment for the lab has been supplied by Ginouves and the GSENM lab, making it a direct extension of the GSENM lab.
Fossil preparation is done with a tiny air tool called a scribe, according to the press release.
As of Tuesday, Ginouves has spent about 40 hours prepping the fossil, and he expects the process will take an additional 50 hours to complete.
Once preparation is finished, the fossil will return to the GSENM lab for research before going on to the Natural History Museum of Utah.
Kaitlyn Bancroft reports on faith, health, education, crime and under-served communities for The Spectrum & Daily News, a USA TODAY Network newsroom in St. George, Utah. You can reach her at KBancroft@thespectrum.com, or follow her on Twitter @katbancroft.