Pullin' Chocks

Finding Fossils and more at Dinosaur National Monument...

Jensen, Utah is just our cup of tea. It's a very small farming community very close to a western entrance to the Dinosaur National Monument and to the brand spanking new Visitor's Center and Exhibit Hall. Dinosaur fossil beds (bone beds) were discovered here in 1909 by Earl Douglass, a paleontologist working for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the dinosaur beds as Dinosaur National Monument in 1915. The monument boundaries were expanded in 1938 from the original 80-acres surrounding the dinosaur quarry in Utah, to its present extent of over 200,000 acres in Utah and Colorado, and encompassing the spectacular Green and Yampa river canyons.

We rode up to the Visitor's Center first to get oriented and Gari right away found a Stegosaurus. You should have seen her ride that thing!

Below is the brand new Visitor's Center. We didn't get to go inside right away because the Shuttle Bus to the bone quarry was leaving, so we jumped right on.

Leaving the Visitor's Center on the open air Shuttle Bus.

Rocks along the route to the dinosaur fossil quarry.

Below is the magnificent Quarry Exhibit Hall. The original Quarry Exhibit Hall built in 1957 was closed in 2006 due to foundation problems from the beginning, as it was built on unstable clay. The Park Service beautifully rebuilt the Quarry Exhibit Hall, supporting its weight on 70-foot steel columns that extend to the bedrock below the unstable clay. The Dinosaur Quarry was reopened in Fall 2011. So our timing in arriving was perfect to observe the fossils from the fantastic new facility.

This is the "Wall of Bones" located within the Dinosaur Quarry Exhibit Hall and consists of a steeply tilted (67° from horizontal) rock layer which contains approximately 1,500 exposed fossils, around 125 different individual animals and 12 different species of dinosaurs. There are two levels where visitors can observe the fossils. The picture below is taken from the second floor platform and you can see visitors standing on the ground observing floor.

Steve is next to a femur bone fossil. Refresher on becoming a fossil; a subject I am becoming more familiar with each day... The dinosaurs roamed these river basin areas, most died from natural causes. Then flood waters came and washed these animals downstream and covered them with silt and mud. This prevented the air from oxidizing the carcasses and bones. Over time the bone material is replaced by minerals leeching into the bones and essentially turning the bones into solid rock or fossils. As opposed to remaining on the surface, exposed to air and the bones oxidizing back to dust.

Gari testing the dinosaur bone bench for Flintstone & Rubble redecorating ideas...

Steve confronts the fossil skull of a Allosaurus fragilis. It would be unimaginable to meet one of these giant lizards! Fortunately no one ever had to meet one! The dinosaurs were long gone... for 65 million years before humans began to appear... as far as we know today. As poorly designed as dinosaurs may seem, that is just not the case. They thrived for 160 Million years, and humans as we know ourselves today, have been around for only about 200,000 years.. big difference I'd say. We should do as well as the dinosaurs!

Standing on the ground viewing floor, Steve points to a femur fossil partially exposed in the Wall of Bones.

Below is the full skeleton model of the Allosaurus fragilis.

One of the Park Rangers engages in a lengthy lecture and discussion of the fascinating dinosaur subject matter. There is no end to the knowledge base and research being done. We continue to learn and revise as we go. She told a brief tale of two paleontologists working in the early 1900's who were friends but became increasingly competitive and one ended up stealing fossil samples from the other. Sounds like an episode straight from the TV show The Big Bang Theory!

An attempt below at capturing the staggering number of exposed fossils on the wall.

Below is a view from the back end of the building looking across the wall from the second floor viewing platform.

A last shot from the wall, that of a full skull and partial neck bone of a dinosaur near the top of the quarry wall.

We decided to hike back to our truck at the Visitor's Center about 1.5 miles away down a trail that promised more fossils. We can see the trail at the bottom of the hill below.

Gari prepares to head up a spur trail where fossils can be observed.

There's a neck vertebra among the rocks below.

Gari stands in front of the Swelter Shelter that has interesting petroglyphs and pictographs on the walls. We learned that petroglyphs are art that is chiseled into the rock with probably another rock, a pictograph is art that is painted directly onto the rocks. We have seen some art that includes both elements, that will be shared in a later blog post.

I think that's a dog, what do you think?

Here we are again, in the middle of the desert...

We made it back to the new Visitor's Center and went inside for a look. They had some very nice historical exhibits and some nice souvenirs.

Gari examines one of the informational displays.

Dinosaur souvenirs for the kids...

Even souvenirs for the adults!

After looking around the Visitor's Center we had a little picnic and decided we still had time for a drive deeper into the park. We chose a 12 mile dirt road that led to an old homestead at the end. Off we went deeper into dinosaur territory...

We passed some locally famous named rocks, Elephant Toes below.

...and Turtle Rock.

We stopped at a petroglyph site and climbed high up in the rocks to see the ancient art.

These are some strange looking beings...

Steve in front of one of the interesting panels.

Below is the ancient flute player Kokopelli.

We finally arrived at the end of the road and the Twentieth Century homestead that Josie Basset Morris called her home from 1914 to 1964! Believe me when I tell you she was many miles from anything and anyone!