Tate Dinosaur Digs
2026 Tate Dinosaur Digs
The 2026 Tate Museum Dinosaur Digs are being planned as we speak. The schedule should be ready for sign-ups in January. I will send an email out to all folks interested if send me an email by clicking here, or on the link at the bottom of this page.
Update: 2026 Digs should be open to registration on Monday 26 January
2026 Tate Dinosaur Digs
The goals of Tate Dinosaur Digs are to offer fun, educational experiences to the public while building up the museum’s collections for display and research. Registration will be through the museum. The fee includes six nights of lodging, six dinners, five field lunches, five breakfasts at the hotel in Lusk or Medicine Bow, snacks, drinks/water, and all ground transportation from Casper. The price is $1350 for a double occupancy room. There is an extra fee ($350) if you want to room solo. The total must paid upon registration. The minimum age for participation is 16. All 16 and 17-year-olds must be accompanied by an adult participant.
The Digs are run by the Tate’s field operations and prep lab manager, JP Cavigelli. 2025 will be JP’s 20th year running these digs for the Tate Geological Museum. JP’s expertise has led to his participation in numerous paleontological expeditions throughout the West as well as in Niger, Mongolia, Alaska’s North Slope and Tanzania. JP’s recent projects beyond Tate Dinosaur Digs include leading the excavation and preparation of Lee Rex, the only Tyrannosaurus rex found in Wyoming that has stayed in Wyoming and leading an upcoming (summer 2025) sauropod excavation.
Fee Includes
Here is what is included in the cost of the week-long Dinosaur Digs. Accommodations at the Ramkota Hotel in Casper hotel on Sunday evening prior to the Dig and Friday evening after the Dig are included. The Ramkota offers a free shuttle to and from Casper-Natrona County International Airport. The cost of a Dig also includes hotel accommodations in either Lusk (Covered Wagon Hotel) or Medicine Bow (Virginian Hotel), depending on the dig site. The Covered Wagon Hotel in Lusk offers continental breakfast. The hotel’s indoor pool and hot tub are always welcome after a hard day in the field. The Virginian Hotel in Medicine Bow is more rustic… it has a sit down restaurant breakfast, which is included in the cost of the Dig, (but no pool). All hotel accommodations are double occupancy. Same sex roommates are assigned as necessary. Single occupancy, based on hotel room availability, can be arranged at extra cost of $350. Any hotel rooms that differ from this arrangement are not covered in the cost of the dig. Simple, delicious lunches in the field are provided daily, as are dinners each night in town. Alcohol is not included in the cost of trips. Dig fees also include all transportation from Casper to the dig site and back to Casper at the end of the dig. Each week of dino digging is limited to 8 people plus two Tate Museum staffers (JP and a field helper/chauffeur).
2026 Description
Digs run from Sunday evening through Friday. Participants should be in Casper the Sunday evening before the posted start date for dinner with the group. Fossils collected remain property of the Tate Geological Museum, although participants are usually allowed to bring home a few samples of bone.
(If a trip is labeled ‘wait list’, feel free to call me to ask about it. Phone number listed below).
NOTE: Our 2026 Dinosaur Digs have filled up very quickly. I have been doing this for 21 years and this is by far, the fastest we have filled up. By Far. If you expressed interest in a 2026 dig, or attended a dig in the past few years, you will remain on my email list for 2027.
(Option 1: Cretaceous Dig. August 3 to 7): Wait List. This dig is Full. We will be at the Meadow Ranch in eastern Wyoming, digging in the late Cretaceous Lance Formation; about 65-66 million years old. We have been collecting on this ranch for fifteen years and still have a lot to do there. We will focus on a bone bed discovered many years ago. This site has produced many bones of many different animals from crocodile and dinosaur teeth to large dinosaur bones, to small pieces of crocodiles, turtles, and other critters. The site is a mixed bag; an accumulation of bones form a Cretaceous river system that mixed all sorts of things into what we now call a bone bed. There may be some prospecting as well… that is walking about looking for new sites. The Lance Formation is well known as the rock unit in Wyoming that records the last breath of the classic dinosaurs (birds are dinosaurs and are, for now, still with us). The most famous dinosaurs form the Lance Formation are T. rex and Wyoming’s state dinosaur, Triceratops. Parts and pieces of the latter, and of the duck-bills, are the most common dinosaur fossils.
(Option 2: Jurassic Dig. August 17 to 21): Wait List. This dig is Full. We will be will be returning to the Morrison Formation at Como Bluff, near the town of Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The fossils here date to the Jurassic Period and are about 154 million years old. This ranch is part of the historical Como Bluff that was collected by Cope and Marsh in the early days of dinosaur exploration. We will be doing some work at either the NASA Quarry or a site called Rodopodosaurus this summer. These quarries are bone beds as well. Bones of many different creatures have been deposited in a Jurassic river bed for us to uncover. These quarries have yielded some articulated specimen bones and a few dinosaur skulls. The Morrison Formation is home to many varieties of sauropods (Brontosaurus-shaped dinosaurs) as well as Stegosaurus, Allosaurus and many other including ancient crocodiles and turtles.
(Option 3: Cretaceous Dig. September 21 to 25): Wait List. This dig is Full. Third verse… same as the first. We will be at the Meadow Ranch in eastern Wyoming, digging in the late Cretaceous Lance Formation; about 65-66 million years old. We have been collecting on this ranch for fifteen years and still have a lot to do there. We will focus on a bone bed discovered many years ago. This site has produced many bones of many different animals from crocodile and dinosaur teeth to large dinosaur bones, to small pieces of crocodiles, turtles, and other critters. The site is a mixed bag; an accumulation of bones form a Cretaceous river system that mixed all sorts of things into what we now call a bone bed. There may be some prospecting as well… that is walking about looking for new sites. The Lance Formation is well known as the rock unit in Wyoming that records the last breath of the classic dinosaurs (birds are dinosaurs and are, for now, still with us). The most famous dinosaurs form the Lance Formation are T. rex and Wyoming’s state dinosaur, Triceratops. Parts and pieces of the latter, and of the duck-bills, are the most common dinosaur fossils.
Payments
At this point we are accepting payments via check or credit card. No PayPal or Zelle… not yet. Checks should be included with the registration forms. To pay by credit card, send in the registration form and release form, and we will call you for a card number when we get you paperwork. We are adding a 3% fee for folks paying with a credit card.
Upon registration we will send you an info letter that fills in all the details.
Participants are required to sign and return the Registration Form and Release Form with the full payment in order to reserve a spot. Please print these and send them in with your payment to the address below (These links are NOT active, yet).
Tate Dinosaur Digs
Tate Geological Museum
125 College Drive
Casper, WY 82601
For more information on any of these outings please call 307-268-3008 or email J.P. Cavigelli.
NOTE: Please do not buy a plane ticket until your registration is confirmed. I send out a letter of confirmation as soon as I get the COMPLETED paperwork and payment. Paperwork INCLUDES the release form.