Dinosaur National Monument - Sept 5, 6, 7

 After a travel day and a lazy day, we are back to exploring on 9/7.  We are at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. The first night welcomed us with this view by the river about a hundred feet or so from our site.

The “main attraction” at Dinosaur National Monument is the Dinosaur Quarry.  This area was discovered by Earl Douglass in 1909.  Paleontologists have collected fossils from almost 400 different dinosaurs.  There are 1,500 fossil bones remaining and they are from 100 individuals.  

The first picture shows the size of the original quarry in white and the size of the quarry now in brown.  Many of the bones that they found were removed and sent to museums around the country such as the Smithsonian in DC, Austin Newark Museum in NJ, University of Texas, Austin, etc, etc.  I have included a picture of the map of where the various fossils went in case you want to take a closer look.

The story of how all of the bones ended up in this one place is as follows:  When extensive rains returned, floods drowned some dinosaurs and swept up carcasses of others that were already dead.  The fast-flowing river carried the bones downstream along the river bottom.  As floodwaters receded, the river slowed.  The bones dropped to the river bottom and began to pile up.  They were covered by sand and mud.  The result was the dinosaur “logjam” that are in the pictures.

Just to give a sense of size, Dave is standing next to an adult right thigh bone of a Camarasaurus.  

This Allosaurus skull is a rare find as the skull bones are thin and delicate bones.  This was discovered at the Quarry in 1924.

We then took the hike from the Quarry to the visitor center where we saw a couple of bones in the rocks, petroglyphs and some cool rocks.  Enjoy the hike.

Can you see the bone in the rock?

Can you see the bone in the rock?

                                        We asked the difference between a petroglyph and a pictograph.  Petroglyph is pecked into the stone.  Pictograph involves some type of “paint”.

In the evening we went to a night sky ranger program.  It is VERY dark here at night, so we saw tons of stars and the milky way.  I am amazed at how they take a special “pointer” and show you all different constellations, etc. in the sky.  I won’t even attempt to pretend I totally understood or could explain it.  So just know that there are lots and lots of things in the night sky.  If you ever get a chance to go to a talk about it, I recommend you do. 

Til next time…