Some tips for a successful future project:

For anyone contemplating this sort of project, I'd recommend 3 to 4 years of burial time for any future project of this sort in Alaska, and 6-8 feet under rather than 10, (shallower if bears are not an issue). Many of our bones are VERY porous and brittle and 10 of the extensions (processes) of lumbars/thoracic vertebrae were broken (we saved all the pieces). This could be avoided, I think, with a shallower pit and sliding the whale rather than rolling it.

We lined the burial pit with gray landscaping fabric that served as a reference point when we excavated the skeleton. Wrapping the flippers with landscaping fabric and duct tape is a very important thing to do so you don't lose any of the small flipper bones. Try and find a fabric that is as porous as possible that will still hold up to the job. Ours was less permeable than I thought and consequently didn't allow the oils to drain off from the bones as well as I would have liked.

Our soil was fairly sterile, very porous, well-drained sandy loam. To increase the bacteria and decomposition rate in such soil, add horse or cow manure on top of the whale, the more the merrier! and, be sure the whale is above the water table.

Having no rocks in our soil was also an advantage for the volunteers who excavated the bones. When they came upon something hard, they knew it was bone rather than the rock.