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Entrance to the Utah side of Dinosaur National Monument |
Dinosaur National Monument is a 200,000 acre park that straddles the Utah/Colorado border. Visitors to the park can
raft the Green or Yampa Rivers, see
petroglyphs, take a
hike,
camp or explore the Dinosaur Bone Quarry located on the Utah side.
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The Building that Houses the Bone Quarry |
Dinosaur bones were discovered here in 1909 by
Earl Douglass, a paleontologist representing the
Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, PA. This quarry is often described as a "wall of bones" as fossils from several species of Jurassic era dinosaurs are embedded in an steeply tilted rock layer that was once a river bed.
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Inside the Bone Quarry |
The Wall of Bones in the newly renovated
Quarry Exhibit Hall is impressive in size, but it is only a small portion of the whole excavation area originally worked by Earl Douglass who shipped more than 700,000 tons of material to the
Carnegie Museum.
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The "Wall of Bones" at Diniosaur National Monument |
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Visitors are invited to touch real fossils in the Dinosaur National Monument Fossil Bone Quarry |
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Camarasaurus skull and spine at Dinosaur National Monument Fossil Bone Quarry |
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The Quarry Exhibit Hall and tram stop overlooks the Green River |
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Getting ready to hike down the Fossil Discovery Trail from the Quarry Bldg to the Utah side Visitor Ctr |
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Fossils can be seen at various spots along the Fossil Discovery Trail |
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Dinosaur National Monument Visitor Center |
Sometimes I have to cajole my children into participating in the
National Park Junior Ranger Program. Each park has an educational brochure/questionnaire specific to each site. Given the
educational focus of this park, no cajoling was needed. My son jumped at the opportunity and really liked the unique, star-shaped paleontology badge.
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