Merle Graffam discovered a Therizinosaur skeleton within a few feet of this spot in the this blue grey moonscape called the tropic shale formation. His find was a new species that was later named after him, Nothronychus gaffami. It is the first therizinosaur discovered outside Asia.

He is holding a caste of the actual knuckle bone that was the first bone he discovered. It was laying on the side of this layered hillside. This bone is significant because it proved that a land dinosaur somehow gotten 60 miles out into the ocean before sinking and becoming buried later to be fossilized. 90% of the skeleton was recovered.

Merle has also discovered the remains of at least 12 plesiosaur skeletons in this same general area. A plesiosaur is a marine dinosaur that swam in an shallow ancient ocean, called Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway, that was here about 90 million years ago.