Start: Park City, UT
Finish: Dinosaur NM, UT
Miles Today: 163
Miles to Date: 5303
Trooper Mileage: 174204
The Dinosaur Quarry is a sandstone rock face inclined about 60 degrees from the horizontal. Originally it was a sandy stream bed in which the remains of many dead dinosaurs were buried 150 million years ago. The sandy deposits were covered with many other layers and eventually transformed into sandstone. Geological forces caused folding of the strata, which gave the bed it's sharp angle. Subsequent erosion wore down the overlying layers, eventually exposing some fossilized bones, which were spotted by people around 1909, which is when the first excavations began.
This picture looks down most of the length of the Dinsaur Quarry rock face. Many fossils have been removed from this face, but many still remain, and no more fossils are being removed from this location. They are being studied in place. There are other locations in the park where excavations continue, but they are not open to the public. The following pictures are sections of the rock face.
The
larger versions of these pictures reveal more detail than can be seen in these
thumbnails.
On the left, a phtographic worker is controlling the lighting for some documentary footage that was being shot on the sight.
These images depict the fossilized bones of allosaurus, apatosaurus, stegosaurus
and many others. In some of these images, you can see the long necks of the
apatosaurus. There actually is a skull in the picture just below, but it is
somewhat
deformed and difficult to spot. It is on the right end of the string of neck
vertebrae.
Down
close to the floor, they actually let you touch the bones that are easily
within reach. However, they don't let you climb up the face to get at the
others :-(
Although a lot of the skeletons that have been removed have been sent to other museums, there are some on display here.
On the left is Allosaurus, a carnivore of the time (150 million years ago). This was a young specimen, "teenaged", not yet nearly full sized, but certainly big enough to ruin your day. This block of stone is about 7 feet high, and is one of the most complete skeletons of allosaurus found anywhere.
On the right is the skull of a somewhat larger specimen of Allosaurus. This skull is about 30 inches long.
Below left is the skeleton of a young apatosaurus, an herbivourus species,
probably
sometimes lunch for allosaurus. This panel is also about 7 feet high. Much
larger, fully adult specimens of apatosaurus are in the quarry rock face,
but this skeleton is remarkably complete.
If you remember my page on the La Brea museum, you will remember the paleontology lab with the large windows allowing people to watch the scientists at their work. There is a similar arrangement here.