Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center - Exhibits


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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

More on Gil

Show prep is continuing on our duckbill! Time for a little background information. Gil, AKA RMDRC 04-001, was discovered in 2004 by "JC" Gil McIntyre. It comes from the upper Judith River Formation, putting its age somewhere around 75 million years old. Excavation began on June 26, 2004 and had been completed by July 2nd. Gil wad found in a fairly soft sandstone with low overburden, which greatly sped up the recovery.

Above is a sketch of the site when TPI field crews excavated it that summer. As you can see it is highly articulated but missing the skull and lower legs. Unfortunately for hadrosaurine hadrosaurs those also happen to be the most distinctive parts, so identification down to genus is still a little tentative. We have been considering Gil to beling to Miasaura, however there exists the possibility that It could belong to two other non-crested duckbills that existed at the same time: Gryposaurus or Prosaurolophus. Below is a photo of the 54cm long right humerus, which may or may not be distinctive. In any case it's pretty, and also slightly longer than the radius.

Prep work is ongoing to find more distinctive skeletal elements, so that we may get a better idea of the true identity of this critter. Special thanks goes out to Dr. James Kirkland for providing PDF reprints so that I may attempt to clear this up!


Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Duckbill tails from the past!

We've been able to do a slight bit of preparation on a Maiasaura that was collected by TPI crews in 2004 from the upper Judith River Fm of Montana. Unfortunately no skin was discovered preserved in this jacket, however there were a few surprises.

The anterior 6 vertebrae show pathological neural spines, perhaps an old bite wound that healed. The chevrons (Y-shaped bones under the tail) are tiny, much smaller than what would normally be expected on a dukbill of this size.
 
This jacket contains 32 articulated caudal vertebrae in a string nearly 8 feet long. Strangely the chevrons are all nearly gone and the ossified ligaments normally found in ornithischian dinosaurs are completely missing.


Tuesday, June 15, 2010

And now for a rare one: Martinichthys

Even though the past two (hot) expeditions to Kansas have been primarily aimed at recovering various Xiphactinus skeletons that we have discovered over the years, we did have a little time to scout some outcrops low in the Niobrara chalk. Last Monday, I stumbled across some fish skull parts on an outcrop and followed them up to their source. This is what was coming out:
 

 
The rostrum of this rare fish is the most commonly discovered part recovered, mostly because it is the densest and most durable bit, and most likely to be found after weathering out of the outcrop. The teeth are tiny and resemble small barbs, though they number in the thousands. We may have found postcranial material with this fish as well, and a recovery operation at the site will be attempted next time we go to Kansas, though that may be a few months.
 
Martinichtys seems to have gone extinct between Marker units 5 and 6 (this specimen is the highest one I can find data for, about 1m below MU 6), as do several other animals int he Niobrara (such as Thryptodus, Tylosaurus kansasensis, and several invertebrates). I am curious what happened to wipe these species out.


Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Meet Tony II!

Well, field season started off with a bang this year. The little mosasaur snout I found in late April turned out to be a nearly complete specimen of Clidastes c.f. moorevillensis, which isn't really supposed to be in the chalk. The critter measures 4.8m long (16 feet), and is so well preserved that it retains cartilage in the ear, sternum, sternal ribs and above the scapulas.
 

Above, Mike Triebold uses a chainsaw with a special blade to separate the block away from the outcrop prior to jacketing. This chalk was the hardest we've ever encountered in nearly 3 decades of collecting in the Niobrara.

The site as seen from the top of an adjacent bluff. Luckily we could drive up to the site to drop off air compressors and generators!
 
Below is the prepared front half of the animal. 45cm (18 inches) of backbone was lost in the mid dorsal section due to erosion years ago. The tail section was taken out in another large jacket. Come see the specimen, now on display in our marine hall at the RMDRC!


Friday, May 14, 2010

RMDRC gets published!

A small project that I've been involved in for a few years, the discovery of the first heteromorph (open coiled) ammonite from the Niobrara Chalk.

Citation:
Everhart, M.J. and Maltese, A. 2010. First report of a heteromorph ammonite, cf. Glyptoxoceras, from the Smoky Hill Chalk (Santonian) of western Kansas, and a brief review of Niobrara cephalopods. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 113:(1-2):64-70.
 
We discovered the specimen while excavating the "Tracie" Tylosaurus nepaeolicus specimen in June 2008. Triebold Paleontology Inc. donated the ammonite to the Sternberg Museum at Fort Hays State University in 2009 after it became clear this was a scientifically important critter.
 
Email me if you need a PDF copy of the paper.


Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Well we're heading out again for a quickie recon before my trip to Korea. Hopefully it will be more productive then the last trip, which was a lot of uphill and downhill walking and very little in return. We recovered a partial Xiphactinus skull that I found accidentally last spring, and I found another skull and partial skeleton (so far, it's still going into the outcrop) that we'll be puling out later this spring. Above the first Xiphactinus, I also found and recovered a small turtle, probably Ctenochelys, that even had limb material. This next trip will not have a film crew, so things should go pretty quick!


 

Monday, March 22, 2010

Disassembling a large jacket

As many of you know, we had to remove our big Daspletosaurus, Pete 3, in 75 different jackets. Jacket RMDRC 06-005-72 was done with a pallet method, weighing in at 4 tons. Paper here on the process.
 


 

This week we are making a concerted effort to take that enormous jacket apart, in hopes of keeping it stable as well as recovering a large section of real estate smack dab in the center of the lab. Unfortunately, some bones are going to have to be broken or cut to "unjackstraw" them, but will be reassembled later. The jackstrawed nature of the bones (as well as their fragility) is what made us remove the huge block in the first place, so it's not like it's a huge surprise. Still, it is a lot of work.


Wednesday, March 10, 2010

BCT is finished!


 
BCT, our large Daspletosaurus that was excavated from 2001 to 2003 from a very very very hard sandstone in eastern Montana is now finished with prep. Paleo teach Jacob Jett finished the last dorsal vertebra, that was encased in a big ugly block of ironstone concretion. I'm just happy I didn't have to work on that!


Monday, February 22, 2010

Meet Bonnerichthys!



Just to toot our own horn.
 
There is a new name for the giant fish formerly known as Protosphyraena gladius. This fish has been known since the 1870s int he Niobrara Chalk, and Cope himself in 1875 had described the pectoral fins of (then) "Portheus" gladius as a "formidable weapon, and could readily be used to split wood in the fossilized condition". We here at the RMDRC do not condone the use of fossil fish fins for wood splitting.
 
The article covers two specimens, one that we prepared here in 2008, the other that we assisted Mike Everhart in collecting and are still working on.
 
The work showed that this fish, though related to the cretaceous swordfish analogue Protosphyraena perniciosa, was in fact a planktivorous filter feeder, much like modern whale sharks and manta rays. This type of feeding behavior was not yet reported for animals in the western interior seaway, and is pretty exciting, especially for an animal with a complete lack of sharp pointy teeth.
 
We are currently working on the first 3d reconstruction made from casts of the specimens in our collection. Keep checking back for progress! Painting at top Copyright Robert Nicholls, used in our paper.
 

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Daspletosaurus vs. T-rex



One of Pete 3's humerus compared to a cast of Peck's Rex. The other humerus is awaiting removal from the main jacket.


Wednesday, February 3, 2010

More Daspletosaurus fun

Pete 3 is rolling along in prep, with 5 jackets finished in the past week (to be fair, 2 of them were 95% done when we shelved the project last May). I'm working through the dorsal ribs and gastralia (belly ribs), because they're quick and easy and usually the last thing anyone wants to work on. The rib head below was finished yesterday, part of the material we had to pull off of the 4-ton jacket early in the prep process. The remainder of the shaft is still on the to-be-prepared shelves, but I hope to get to it very soon. Man, this Daspletosaurus was big.


 

Friday, January 29, 2010

Pete 3 now published!

For all of you out there keeping tabs on our Daspletosaurus prep projects (which seem to be hitting high gear again), you probably know how much I complain about the matrix and bone quality issues on them. For BCT, it's soft-ish bone locked in a hard sandstone with Ironstone concretion. On the exact opposite end of the spectrum it is Pete 3 with very soft sandy matrix encasing super fragile and shattered bones.
 
I did a poster presentation on the Pete 3 issue at the first Fossil Preparations and Collections Symposium that Matt Brown helped host in 2008. The paper is now available online with the entire collection of presentations from the meeting.
 
Congrats Matt on making the volume available, and I hope to see some blog readers at this years meeting in Chicago.


Monday, January 18, 2010

Daspletosaurus progress

If you've been following the RMDRC newsletter since our museum opened, you're probably familiar with our BCT Daspletosaurus n. sp. specimen, nicknamed "Sir William". If so, skip ahead a bit.
 
BCT is a tyrannosaur discovered in 2001 in central Montana. It was originally thought to be in the Hell Creek Formation, making it a small Tyrannosaurus rex. Later, in 2005, it was discovered that the rocks were actually lower Judith River Formation, meaning that it is most likely Daspletosaurus. This specimen is an adult at 16 years of age (as determined by Greg Erickson) but displays some non-traditional Daspletosaurus traits, such as only 13 dentary alveoli (lower jaw tooth sockets), incidentally the same number as normally found in T. rex. Curious.
 
The excavation was very difficult, and took the summers of 2002 and 2003. The bones were encased in a combination of hard sandstone and ironstone concretions. Preparation was likewise slow.



This cervical vertebra is one of the last bones to be prepared from BCT, starting out as a 40 pound block of hard hard rock. After 30 hours of air scribe and air abrasion work this giant and beautiful bone is nearly done. Good job, Jacob, in getting this specimen ready for display!


Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Last of Leroy for the year

OK, embedding of this Xiphactinus is done, assembly is done, now all that is ahead of us are hours upon hours of detailing. That and figuring out exactly how it's getting upright. That will be an interesting day... I don't think I want to take video of that.
 
On the bright side not only is the project almost done, but to preserve our sanity Jacob and I have been able to devote one hour at the end of each day to preparing other stuff. Special treat for follower Saurian, Jacob has been preparing a cervical vertebra from our BCT specimen of Daspletosaurus n. sp., out of the lower Judith River Fm. I on the other hand have a special secret non-dinosaur project, that I hope I'll be able to reveal in the first quarter of the new year. It's very exciting, trust me!
 
Below is a new photo of the progress made in the past week. Exciting, no?


 

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Leroy part 2

Well, assembly is pretty much finished! Leroy is embedded and now all that lies ahead are weeks and weeks of detail work. And of course the whole how the heck are we going to get that slab upright. It's ok, I have a plan, sort of. If it doesn't work you will all know about it in a few weeks. The mount right now weighs in at about 1200 pounds. Jacob is pointing to the specimen for scale. It's hard to get it all in one shot, with the overall size of 16'x7'. We need to start finding smaller fish.


 

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The construction of Leroy

As some of you may know, we are currently working on the construction of a plaque mounted Xiphactinus, nicknamed "Leroy", that was collected in the mid 1990s. "Leroy" is a big Xiphactinus at 15 feet, however not quite as large as "Mildred", the 18 foot long monster that we collected in the summer of 2008.
 
Making a plaque mount is a very time and labor intensive process, espescially when the bones are jumbled when in the ground. Each individual element must be removed and prepared, and of course prepared on the correct side. The right side of the skull was the best and prepared side, which drove our decision to have the right side of the entire fish displayed.



I'll post photos of or progress as we move forward. This is what the project looked like nearly a month ago when the major preparation was finished, and we decided to start laying out the fossil bones. Curator doing the classic TPI field pose (pointing "There it is") for scale. The size of the project is deceiving, the black rectangle is a 16 by 5 foot area of steel and 3/4" plywood. The chicken wire mesh is for strength of the material used to embed the bones. You can probably see that there are literally hundreds of individual bones (spines, fins and ribs)missing. The simple reason is that in this early stage, we don't want too much stuff floating around. You will see these elements get put in later stages of the process.
 

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Fossil of the week: revived!

I've been slacking, I admit it. Here's the challenge of the week: The photo below is definitely a squamosal off of a chasmosaurine ceratopsian. The question is which one? Pleas guess int he comments section.


 

Monday, November 23, 2009

Pentanogmius now on display!

Our new specimen of Pentanogmius evolutus, RMDRC 09-015, is now on display in the marine hall. This specimen was collected from the lower Niobrara chalk in Lane Co, Kansas earlier this year. Missing only the tail, this is one of the most complete and one of the few articulated specimens ever found of this uncommon fish. It's deep body and giant sail make it over 3 feet tall, with a total length of 5-6 feet. Pentanogmius was shown in the National Geographic IMAX film Sea Monsters, along with our Dolichorhynchops and Xiphactinus specimens also on display in the marine hall. As always, our exhibits are constantly changing, so come by this holiday season and see what else we're working on.

Painting of Pentanogmius evolutus adapted from an original work (Plate 30) by Deb Bennett (1983) as published in Kansas Geology, Rex Buchanan (ed.), University of Kansas Press, 1983. Image from http://www.oceansofkansas.com
 

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Another rare fish

The Niobrara sea was home to more than just Xiphactinus and sharks. There are dozens of other species of fish, some known very well, others from scrappy remains.

One of the rarest is the fish formerly known as Bananogmius, now Pentanogmius. The name change is sad, really, because I quite enjoy saying "Bananogmius", although not quite as much as I love getting other people to try saying it. It was a large fish with no big teeth, yet a large sail fin running the length of the animal. It had only tiny pectoral and pelvic fins.



The RMDRC has a new articulated specimen (photo above) recovered this year off of private land. The skull is to the left, with the sail fin taking most of the upper half of the large jacket. This one is much larger (over 5 feet long), more complete, and better preserved than the new Denver specimen. It has been "show prepped" to a plaque stage, and will be molded as is. This will get the fish ready for 3d reconstruction using casts of the original bones.
 

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Preparing Fish

Nice specimens of Xiphactinus audax can be found occasionally in the Niobrara chalk, however articulated fish are extraordinarily rare. Unfortunately a jumbled pile of bones is not very pretty, so this month we are attempting to reconstruct a 15 foot fish as a panel (flat) mounted skeleton.



Above is the skull of the fish, nicknamed "Leroy". It is currently partially prepared and has been on display in our marine hall since the museum opened over 5 years ago. The body was collected sometime in the mid 1990s. Below you can see Jacob Jett preparing one of the many jacketed slabs of bone and chalk. Trust me, that's really his hand.

I'll continue to update as we proceed, however progress is slow due to how delicate fish bones are, even on these giant predators. Stop by and watch us work in the lab, we will be at this for a while!
 

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

New Turtle Display Almost Done!

I just wanted everyone to know our new surrogate marine hall is about finished and ready to open, hopefully for this (cold) weekend. We've got quite a turtle-heavy display, featuring skeletons of Archelon, Protostega, Toxochelys, Prionochelys and the shell of Bothremys. Also on display is a mosasaur-bitten Toxochelys shell, RMDRC 08-003 "Kraigums" that I discovered last spring, as well as the only real bones of Megalocoelacanthus dobiei on public display anywhere, the youngest fossil coelacanth found. There are also many more marine touch stations too. Please stop by and let us know what you think!
 

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Holly is done!


 
The Pteranodon sternbergi specimen (RMDRC 09-007) I discovered this spring was about 70% complete. The restored elements (mostly parts of the left wing and the lower jaw) are casts of CMNFV 41358, AKA "The Triebold Specimen". It is embedded in an artificial matrix simply because squashed flat bones are not useful for 3d specimen mounts. I am so happy this project is finally finished.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Disassembling Joyce

Our Lambeosaurus, Joyce (RMDRC 07-020) is being prepared, partly because the dang main jacket (map above) is taking up way too much space in the prep area of the lab. The problem is that the bones are very difficult to separate. They are jackstrawed together, brittle, and now that all of the water has evaporated out of the jacket, the matrix is much harder.

The site with Kraig and Jacob while exposed for NBC camera crew.
Below is the main block before jacketing. Getting this apart is our newest challenge.


Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Montana in photos



I figure this is a good place to show some of the things we did this summer in Montana. Nothing spectacular was found, but there was a lot of evaluation hole digging. Above is Jacob and I trying to trace a thescolasaur on one of the easier to get to outcrops.



The country was pretty rough at times. Here's an annotated photo of what we were dealing with. The crew was secretly hoping that there was nothing to the dino I found at the bottom of the gully. Right next to the stream/standing water, complete with flies, gnats and mosquitoes.



While evaluating the site, Jacob and I discussed our options. Our helper Tor was trying hard not to be a witness. More photos to come in the coming days. Special thanks to Bill Montante for taking these pictures.


Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Prepping skin on WXT

A jacket of WXT, a huge Edmontosaurus specimen discovered in southern North Dakota 2002, was brought into the lab for preparation this past week. Before I could even begin, I noticed the scale pattern of the skin preserved as a film on one bone. Skin is uncommon but not unheard of in the Hell Creek Formation.

Further poking around showed scales preserved in the sandstone matrix in 3 dimensions. The scales themselves are only a few millimeters thick, and are preserved in a layer that will not separate easily. I'm now determining the extent of the skin present, and what should be done to it to best preserve it. The photo below shows one of the counterparts of the skin impression that was removed from the block.



 

Monday, July 6, 2009

Call for volunteers

 
So, you wanna dig dinosaurs?
 
We're looking for a few volunteers to come with us to central Montana this summer to help scout, recover the rest of our giant Basilemys turtle and begin excavation on a big hardosaur (the tibia is over 4 feet long). Our crew will be leaving from Colorado on July 28th, and will likely stay for 2 weeks. We will be headquartered out of a camping lodge, and there is no cost to volunteers besides transportation and food. All excavation equipment and supplies will be provided, personal tools are to be brought by each person attending. More on that after applications are reviewed.

 
Applications may be sent to me at anthony@rmdrc.com and should outline biology or geology experience. This trip is a wonderful way to gain experience for undergrad and graduate students in field collection methods. We will be focusing not only on excavation techniques, but data collection (mapping, stratigraphic sections and correlation, taphonomy) as well as site evaluation.


Friday, June 26, 2009

Introducing "Bev"

We have a new addition to the RMDRC mosasaur family: a Platecarpus ictericus from the upper Niobrara Chalk of Logan County, KS. I discovered this one on June 17th, but we didn't return to excavate till the 19th.

 
It appears to be a complete skull and cervical series, with a number of articulated dorsal vertebrae and ribs. The skull is scattered, but preserves not only all of the bones, but also calcified cartilage. This specimen is a great candidate for further preparation and 3d
mounting. Judging by the size of the lower jaws (18 inches) the complete animal would probably be 18 feet long. Unfortunately, scavenging sharks (probably Squalicorax kaupi, however a Cretoxyrhina mantelli tooth was also found on the same outcrop, rare in the upper chalk) forcibly removed the front limbs from Bev before she hit the bottom of the Western Interior Seaway 83 million years ago.

 

You may notice that we give nicknames to the specimens, and there is a great reason why. This mosasaur was discovered about 30 feet away from (and 15 minutes after) another Platecarpus specimen on the same outcrop. Instead of referring to them a "you know, the first mosasaur that Jacob found that week", we name them to keep them straight, both in the field and the lab.

 
The person that discovers the specimen gets the naming rights. In this case Bev is named after my mother. It's a great way of discovering which relatives like you best.


Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Fun in the Chalk


It was a good trip...

We only got 2 days of scouting in before getting rained out of the field on Saturday, however we found some good new specimens. Jacob Jett was able to find his first mosasaur, a Platecarpus specimen in the upper chalk of Logan County. I stumbled upon another mosasaur, Platecarpus ictericus, about 30 feet further down the same gully, and elsewhere on the same private ranch I discovered the hips of a large diving bird, Hesperornis.
 
Thursday we spent the day excavating a giant fish with Mike Everhart, currently identified as Protosphyraena gladius, however that seems likely to change in the next few years. It was extremely hot and humid, with the temperature at 7:00pm at 103 degrees. The photograph shows Mike Everhart, Jacob Jett and a little bit of Mike Triebold at the excavation site.
 
Friday and Saturday were spent excavating the Platecarpus specimens, and all the fossils made it safely back to our lab. Be sure to stop by in the next month to watch us prepare these critters and more in our lab viewing area.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Off to the field!

No fossil of the week this time, our field crew will be headed off to the Niobrara Chalk in western Kansas bright and early Wednesday morning to investigate and recover more sea critters. I'll be taking lots of photographs so you can all see who's there and what we do, even some of the stuff we don't tell you about on our tours of the RMDRC.

 
Currently in the ground we have a small shark (probably Squalicorax falcatus), a small (12 foot) Xiphactinus audax, and a gigantic (18 foot plus) Xiphactinus that was partially poached from the rancher's property. Also, we'll be investigating a giant clam, Platyceramus, in hopes of putting it on display in our marine hall this summer. And who knows just what we may stumble upon once we start scouting!


Fossil of the week: 6/9/09

Let's talk big fish this week!

Ichthyodectid fish are amongst the most common fish found in the Niobrara chalk. The genera Prosaurodon, Saurodon, Saurocephalus, Gillicus, Ichthyodectes and the giant Xiphactinus are all found at various stratigraphic levels. Fish have very delicate skulls, however many times they are recovered articulated. It is impossible to disassemble these skulls without damaging them, so we usually prepare them in profile view. Sometimes they are disarticluated, looking like they reenacted the final scene from "Jaws 3D". These scattered skulls enable us to reassemble the pieces and take out some of the crushing distortion from 82-86 million years of burial.
 
The photo is of a specimen of Saurodon leanus named "Tony" that I discovered in Logan County, Kansas in October of 2006. Stratigraphically we're at about marker unit 18, so fairly high in the chalk, nearing the Pierre Shale contact. This is one of the more rare fish in the chalk, caricterized by it's long eel-like body and distinctive chin spike. As you can see, the bones of the skull have blown all apart, making this specimen a great candidate for molding and 3d reconstruction. No one is quite sure what the spike is used for, my guess is probing into the bottom mud of the western interior seaway looking for soft bodied invertebrates (such as worms) to eat. Hopefully we'll find more specimens in the future that may include stomach contents.


Fossil of the week: 5/29/09

This past week I was attending the 8th Conference on Fossil Resources in St. George, UT. The second group of talks all focused on the Campanian aged flora and fauna of the western interior. A few brief mentions of the poor neglected duckbill dinosaur fauna were made, but I wanted to share with you an image of one that I'd love to find: "The duckbill that ate Manhattan!" Paleo Tech Jacob Jett (6'4" tall, shown back in his younger days) is shown for scale.

This isolated rib bone was discovered in the upper Judith River Formation (Campanian aged) in the summer of 2004 while excavating a centrosaurine horned dinosaur called "UTC". Isolated duckbill skeletal remains are not uncommon at dig sites. In fact, juvenile hadrosaur jaws have been found at both our  "Joyce" and "Pete 3" sites in the same area.
 
Unfortunately, isolated postcranial remains on hadrosaurs aren't very diagnostic, so it is impossible to say which critter this rib belongs to. It is a good deal longer than our longest rib on "Big Ed", the 34 foot long Edmontosaurus annectens that is now on display in Korea. I'd estimate the body length of this duckbill to be at least 40 feet.

About Our Lab

The Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center is home to one of the largest fossil preparation labs in the world. Here, paleontologists and Paleo Technicians painstakingly remove rock and glue from fossils in order to ready them for display. In some cases, the most important of these fossils are later molded so their casts may be displayed in museums around the world. Working on specimens new to science is a common occurrence.

Past Projects

Some of our previous projects may be seen on display at the RMDRC as well as museums worldwide. Here's a list of some of our previous efforts:
 
Project  Completed
Apatosaurus exelsus Spring 2008
Daspletosaurus “Pete 3” Fall 2008
Triceratops horridus “Pookie” Spring 2007
Thescelosaurus sp. “Jonathan” Summer 2007
Protosphyaea gladius Summer 2007

 

Project Completed 2006
Plesiosaur bone bed "TMBB" January  2006
Dolichorhynchops bonneri January  2006

 

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URL: http://www.rmdrc.com/exhibits/exhibits.htm Last Updated: Monday October 30, 2006
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