Finding Dinosaurs Is in This Amateur’s Bones : Paleontology: Part-time fossil hunter tells of finding his first rare Tyrannosaurus rex in 1987 and the second recently.
Sheltered from the relentless prairie wind by an aging van, Stan Sacrison takes another drag from a cigarette.
Atop a steep butte about 100 yards from this ramshackle base camp, a crew is digging up the remains of the latest Tyrannosaurus rex he has found.
“It’s incredible luck,” said Sacrison, a part-time dinosaur hunter who is a plumber and electrician by occupation. “I also live in the right area.”
It is the second tyrannosaur he has found in the last six years.
“I look every chance I get,” Sacrison said. “If you look and look, you learn and learn.”
At age 8 he found his first dinosaur bone while scouring the rugged landscape in northwestern South Dakota’s Harding County, where cattle and sheep outnumber people.
“I get real personal satisfaction out of being able to see the animals that once existed,” he said. “It just absolutely proves they were there.”
Sacrison, who studied geological engineering in college for three years, found his first Tyrannosaurus rex in 1987 on a huge ranch several miles from town. More than 60% of the skeleton was recovered.
The fossil was sold to the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, a private company that provides dinosaur remains to museums and universities worldwide.
He found another tyrannosaur earlier this year about a half mile from the first one. Sacrison’s twin brother, Steve, recently found a triceratops skeleton a short distance from the T. rex.
The Tyrannosaurus rex, a huge meat-eating dinosaur, roamed only in North America and was among the last living dinosaurs, becoming extinct 65 million years ago.
Up to 30 workers helped uncover the dinosaur skeleton in July. About a dozen camped here, sleeping in a small trailer and tents. Portable toilets were hauled in; workers showered with water from a black barrel perched on a wooden frame.
Sacrison, 36, and his fellow diggers toiled under the hot sun with picks, shovels and brushes, got rained on repeatedly and drank their share of beer at night.
About 20% of the skeleton was recovered. But the dig was temporarily abandoned in early August when workers could not locate the creature’s larger bones.
“It’s not easy to find something important out here because this area has been studied for a long time,” said Peter Larson, president of the Black Hills Institute at Hill City.
“Stan’s ability comes from experience and perseverance. He will visit sites again and again, not giving up on them. He has faith that some of these things he’s digging on are going to turn into something.”
Larson walked briskly up the nearby slope to the excavation site. He scraped at loose dirt on a ridge, looking for clues that could lead to the rest of the skeleton. It may take special electronic sensing equipment to pick up the trail, he said.
The large bones could be down a few more inches or 50 feet away, he said.
Bones from more than 100 of the fierce dinosaurs have been found, but only about a dozen of the fossilized skeletons are at least 20% complete, Larson said.
“Bones that are coming out on the surface are broken into hundreds and even thousands of pieces. You don’t see whole skeletons laying exposed. It can be discouraging.”
Sacrison has collected about 1,000 dinosaur bones of all types. He keeps them in an old schoolhouse that he uses for a workshop.
“There’s a rack of electrical and plumbing parts, and a rack of dinosaur bones,” Sacrison said. “I’ve got about 50% of a baby duckbill. That’s one I’m really proud of.”
Sacrison said he hunts for fossils about 30 days a year and would do it more if he could. “It’s a joy. I consider it play. I’m not married, so that makes it easier to pursue my hobby.”
Someday he would like to open a dinosaur museum in Buffalo, population 488 and the largest town in the county. Until then, his prehistoric passion will keep him wandering remote hills and gullies.
