Dinosaur National Monument
Encyclopedia
Dinosaur National Monument is a National Monument
located on the southeast flank of the Uinta Mountains
on the border between Colorado
and Utah
at the confluence of the Green
and Yampa
Rivers. Although most of the monument area is in Moffat County, Colorado
, the Dinosaur Quarry 40°26′29"N 109°18′04"W is located in Utah just to the north of the town of Jensen, Utah
. The nearest communities are Vernal, Utah
and Dinosaur, Colorado
. This park has fossils of dinosaur
s including Allosaurus
, Abydosaurus (a nearly complete skull, lower jaws and first four neck vertebrae of the specimen DINO 16488 found here at the base of the Mussentuchit Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation
is the holotype
for the description) and various long-neck, long-tail sauropods. It was declared a National Monument on October 4, 1915.
and conglomerate
bed of alluvial or river bed origin known as the Morrison Formation
from the Jurassic
Period some 150 million years old. The dinosaurs and other ancient animals were washed into the area and buried presumably during flooding events. The pile of sediments were later buried and lithified into solid rock. The layers of rock were later uplifted and tilted to their present angle by the mountain building forces that formed the Uintas. The relentless forces of erosion
exposed the layers at the surface to be found by paleontologists.
s) were discovered in 1909 by Earl Douglass, a paleontologist working and collecting for the Carnegie Museum. He and his crews excavated thousands of fossils and shipped them back to the museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
for study and display. 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 (323,748.8 m²) tract surrounding the dinosaur quarry in Utah, to its present extent of over 200,000 acres (800 km²) in Utah and Colorado, encompassing the spectacular river canyons of the Green
and Yampa
.
Though lesser-known than the fossil beds, the petroglyph
s in Dinosaur National Monument are another treasure the monument holds. Due to problems with vandals, many of the sites are not listed on area maps.
Places on the list of National Register of Historic Places include:
layer
which contains hundreds of dinosaur
fossil
s. The enclosing rock has been chipped away to reveal the fossil bones intact for public viewing. In July 2006, the Quarry Visitor Center
was closed indefinitely due to structural problems that have plagued the building since 1957 as it was built on unstable clay. The current preferred plan is to rehabilitate the existing Quarry building, destroying the serpentine ramp, administrative, and museum facilities. A new facility to house the visitor center and administrative functions would be constructed elsewhere in the monument. This plan would provide a safe structure while still retaining a portion of the historic Mission 66
era exhibit hall. It was announced in April 2009 that Dinosaur National Monument would receive $13.1 million to refurbish and reopen the gallery as part of President Obama's administration $750 billion stimulus plan.
. The Park Service successfully rebuilt the Quarry Structure and the Quarry was reopened in Fall 2011.
Reptilia
Dinosauria
plans for a ten-dam, billion dollar Colorado River Storage Project
began to arouse opposition in the early 1950s when it was announced that one of the proposed dams would be at Echo Park
, in the middle of Dinosaur National Monument. The controversy assumed major proportions, dominating conservation politics for years. David Brower, executive director of the Sierra Club
, and Howard Zahniser
of The Wilderness Society led an unprecedented nationwide campaign to preserve the free-flowing rivers and scenic canyons of the Green and Yampa Rivers. They argued that, if a national monument was not safe from development, how could any wildland be kept intact?
On the other side of the argument were powerful members of Congress
from western states, who were committed to the project in order to secure water rights, obtain cheap hydroelectric power and develop reservoirs as tourist destinations. After much debate, Congress settled on a compromise that eliminated Echo Park Dam and authorized the rest of the project. The Colorado River Storage Project Act became law on April 11, 1956. It stated, “that no dam or reservoir constructed under the authorization of the Act shall be within any National Park or Monument.”
Historians view the Echo Park Dam controversy as signaling the start of an era that includes major conservationist political successes such as the Wilderness Act
and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
U.S. National Monument
A National Monument in the United States is a protected area that is similar to a National Park except that the President of the United States can quickly declare an area of the United States to be a National Monument without the approval of Congress. National monuments receive less funding and...
located on the southeast flank of the Uinta Mountains
Uinta Mountains
The Uinta Mountains are a high chain of mountains in northeastern Utah and extreme northwestern Colorado in the United States. A subrange of the Rocky Mountains, they are unusual for being the highest range in the contiguous United States running east to west, and lie approximately east of Salt...
on the border between Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
and Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
at the confluence of the Green
Green River (Utah)
The Green River, located in the western United States, is the chief tributary of the Colorado River. The watershed of the river, known as the Green River Basin, covers parts of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. The Green River is long, beginning in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming and flowing...
and Yampa
Yampa River
The Yampa River is a tributary of the Green River, approximately 250 mi long, in the U.S. state of Colorado. It's located in the Southwestern United States...
Rivers. Although most of the monument area is in Moffat County, Colorado
Moffat County, Colorado
Moffat County is the northwesternmost and the second most extensive of the 64 counties of the State of Colorado of the United States. The county population was 13,184 at U.S. Census 2000. The county seat is Craig.- History :...
, the Dinosaur Quarry 40°26′29"N 109°18′04"W is located in Utah just to the north of the town of Jensen, Utah
Jensen, Utah
Jensen is a census-designated place in eastern Uintah County, Utah, United States. The population was 412 at the 2010 census. It lies along the Green River and U.S. Route 40, southeast of the city of Vernal and about 17 miles west of the Colorado border, the county seat of Uintah County...
. The nearest communities are Vernal, Utah
Vernal, Utah
Vernal, Uintah County's largest city, is located in eastern Utah near the Colorado State Line, and 175 miles east of Salt Lake City. It is bordered on the north by the Uinta Mountains, one of the few mountains ranges in the world which lie in an east-west rather than the usual north to south...
and Dinosaur, Colorado
Dinosaur, Colorado
The Town of Dinosaur is a Statutory Town located in Moffat County, Colorado, United States. The town population was 320 at the U.S. Census 2000....
. This park has fossils of dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s including Allosaurus
Allosaurus
Allosaurus is a genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic period . The name Allosaurus means "different lizard". It is derived from the Greek /allos and /sauros...
, Abydosaurus (a nearly complete skull, lower jaws and first four neck vertebrae of the specimen DINO 16488 found here at the base of the Mussentuchit Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation
Cedar Mountain Formation
The Cedar Mountain Formation is the name given to distinctive sedimentary rocks in eastern Utah that occur between the underlying Morrison Formation and overlying Naturita Formation . It is composed of non-marine sediments, that is, sediments deposited in rivers, lakes and on flood plains...
is the holotype
Holotype
A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype...
for the description) and various long-neck, long-tail sauropods. It was declared a National Monument on October 4, 1915.
Geology
The rock layer enclosing the fossils is a sandstoneSandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
and conglomerate
Conglomerate (geology)
A conglomerate is a rock consisting of individual clasts within a finer-grained matrix that have become cemented together. Conglomerates are sedimentary rocks consisting of rounded fragments and are thus differentiated from breccias, which consist of angular clasts...
bed of alluvial or river bed origin known as the Morrison Formation
Morrison Formation
The Morrison Formation is a distinctive sequence of Late Jurassic sedimentary rock that is found in the western United States, which has been the most fertile source of dinosaur fossils in North America. It is composed of mudstone, sandstone, siltstone and limestone and is light grey, greenish...
from the Jurassic
Jurassic
The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Mya to Mya, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the age of reptiles. The start of the period is marked by...
Period some 150 million years old. The dinosaurs and other ancient animals were washed into the area and buried presumably during flooding events. The pile of sediments were later buried and lithified into solid rock. The layers of rock were later uplifted and tilted to their present angle by the mountain building forces that formed the Uintas. The relentless forces of erosion
Erosion
Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
exposed the layers at the surface to be found by paleontologists.
History
The dinosaur fossil beds (bone bedBone bed
A bone bed is any geological stratum or deposit that contains bones of whatever kind. Inevitably, such deposits are sedimentary in nature. Not a formal term, it tends to be used more to describe especially dense collections...
s) were discovered in 1909 by Earl Douglass, a paleontologist working and collecting for the Carnegie Museum. He and his crews excavated thousands of fossils and shipped them back to the museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
for study and display. President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
proclaimed the dinosaur beds as Dinosaur National Monument in 1915. The monument boundaries were expanded in 1938 from the original 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) tract surrounding the dinosaur quarry in Utah, to its present extent of over 200,000 acres (800 km²) in Utah and Colorado, encompassing the spectacular river canyons of the Green
Green River (Utah)
The Green River, located in the western United States, is the chief tributary of the Colorado River. The watershed of the river, known as the Green River Basin, covers parts of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. The Green River is long, beginning in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming and flowing...
and Yampa
Yampa River
The Yampa River is a tributary of the Green River, approximately 250 mi long, in the U.S. state of Colorado. It's located in the Southwestern United States...
.
Though lesser-known than the fossil beds, the petroglyph
Petroglyph
Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...
s in Dinosaur National Monument are another treasure the monument holds. Due to problems with vandals, many of the sites are not listed on area maps.
Places on the list of National Register of Historic Places include:
- Prehistoric sites
- Castle Park Archeological District, a prehistoric residential site with inhabition during 1500 - 1000 BC and again from AD 1000 - 1899 by the Prehistoric Fremont cultureFremont cultureThe Fremont culture or Fremont people is a pre-Columbian archaeological culture which received its name from the Fremont River in the U.S. state of Utah where the first Fremont sites were discovered. The Fremont River itself is named for John Charles Frémont, an American explorer. It inhabited...
, Ute and Shoshone people. - Mantle's Cave is a prehistoric Fremont cultureFremont cultureThe Fremont culture or Fremont people is a pre-Columbian archaeological culture which received its name from the Fremont River in the U.S. state of Utah where the first Fremont sites were discovered. The Fremont River itself is named for John Charles Frémont, an American explorer. It inhabited...
residential site from 499 BC - AD 1749.
- Castle Park Archeological District, a prehistoric residential site with inhabition during 1500 - 1000 BC and again from AD 1000 - 1899 by the Prehistoric Fremont culture
- Historic sites in the Dinosaur National MonumentDinosaur National MonumentDinosaur National Monument is a National Monument located on the southeast flank of the Uinta Mountains on the border between Colorado and Utah at the confluence of the Green and Yampa Rivers. Although most of the monument area is in Moffat County, Colorado, the Dinosaur Quarry is located in Utah...
- Denis Julien InscriptionDenis Julien InscriptionDenis Julien Inscription may refer to one of four incised panels on rocks in southern Utah left by trapper Denis Julien in the 1830s and 1840s.* Denis Julien Inscription , Dinosaur National Monument...
- Rial Chew Ranch ComplexRial Chew Ranch ComplexThe Rial Chew Ranch Historic District comprises a ranching operation in what is now Dinosaur National Monument in northwestern Colorado, that existed from 1900 to 1949. The Rial Chew family established the ranch in 1900, operating it as a park inholding after the national monument was established...
- Upper Wade and Curtis CabinUpper Wade and Curtis CabinThe Upper Wade and Curtis Cabin was built in 1933 by John Grounds in Dinosaur National Monument. The rustic building served as a guest lodge and ranger station, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the oldest remaining guest accommodation in the park....
- Denis Julien Inscription
Climate
The Dinosaur National Monument sits on a vast area of desert land in Northwestern Colorado and Northeastern Utah. Typical of "high deserts", summer temperatures can be exceedingly hot, while winter temperatures can be very cold. Snowfall is common, but the snow melts rapidly in the arid and sunny climates of these states. Rainfall is very low, and the evaporation rate classifies the area as desert, even though the rainfall just barely exceeds 10 inches.The Quarry
The Dinosaur wall located within the Dinosaur Quarry building in the park consists of a steeply tilted (67° from horizontal) rockRock (geology)
In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...
layer
Stratum
In geology and related fields, a stratum is a layer of sedimentary rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from other layers...
which contains hundreds of dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s. The enclosing rock has been chipped away to reveal the fossil bones intact for public viewing. In July 2006, the Quarry Visitor Center
Quarry Visitor Center
Quarry Visitor Center, in Dinosaur National Monument in Utah was built as part of the National Park Service's Mission 66 program of modern architectural design in the US national parks. This visitor center exemplifies the philosophy of locating visitor facilities immediately at the resource being...
was closed indefinitely due to structural problems that have plagued the building since 1957 as it was built on unstable clay. The current preferred plan is to rehabilitate the existing Quarry building, destroying the serpentine ramp, administrative, and museum facilities. A new facility to house the visitor center and administrative functions would be constructed elsewhere in the monument. This plan would provide a safe structure while still retaining a portion of the historic Mission 66
Mission 66
Mission 66 was a US National Park Service ten-year program that was intended to dramatically expand Park Service visitor services by 1966, in time for the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Park Service....
era exhibit hall. It was announced in April 2009 that Dinosaur National Monument would receive $13.1 million to refurbish and reopen the gallery as part of President Obama's administration $750 billion stimulus plan.
. The Park Service successfully rebuilt the Quarry Structure and the Quarry was reopened in Fall 2011.
Vertebrate Fossils from Carnegie Quarry
- Now enclosed by the Dinosaur Quarry building (Gilmore (1936), Foster (2003))
- (h) = holotype
Reptilia
- Testudines
- Amphichelydia
- Glyptops plicatus
- Dinochelys whitei
- Amphichelydia
- Rhynchocephalia
-
- Opisthias rarus
-
- Crocodilia
- Mesosuchia
- Gonipholididae
- GoniopholisGoniopholisGoniopholis is an extinct genus of crocodyliform that lived in North America, Europe and Asia during the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous. Being semi-aquatic it is very similar to modern crocodiles...
sp.
- Goniopholis
- Atoposauridae
- Hoplosuchus kayi (h)
- Gonipholididae
- Mesosuchia
Dinosauria
- Saurischia
- Theropoda
- CeratosaurusCeratosaurusCeratosaurus meaning "horned lizard", in reference to the horn on its nose , was a large predatory theropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic Period , found in the Morrison Formation of North America, in Tanzania and Portugal...
sp. - TorvosaurusTorvosaurusTorvosaurus is a genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived during the Late Jurassic period...
sp. - AllosaurusAllosaurusAllosaurus is a genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic period . The name Allosaurus means "different lizard". It is derived from the Greek /allos and /sauros...
fragilis
- Ceratosaurus
- Sauropoda
- ApatosaurusApatosaurusApatosaurus , also known by the popular but scientifically deprecated synonym Brontosaurus, is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived from about 154 to 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period . It was one of the largest land animals that ever existed, with an average length of and a...
louisae (h) - BarosaurusBarosaurusBarosaurus ; Greek barys/βαρυς meaning 'heavy' and saurus/σαυρος meaning 'lizard', 'heavy lizard') was a giant, long-tailed, long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur closely related to the more familiar Diplodocus...
lentus - CamarasaurusCamarasaurusCamarasaurus meaning 'chambered lizard', referring to the hollow chambers in its vertebrae was a genus of quadrupedal, herbivorous dinosaurs. It was the most common of the giant sauropods to be found in North America...
lentus - DiplodocusDiplodocusDiplodocus , or )is a genus of diplodocid sauropod dinosaur whose fossils were first discovered in 1877 by S. W. Williston. The generic name, coined by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878, is a Neo-Latin term derived from Greek "double" and "beam", in reference to its double-beamed chevron bones...
"longus" - ?Haplocanthosaurus sp.
- Uintasaurus douglassi (h) (now Camarasaurus lentus)
- Apatosaurus
- Theropoda
- Ornithischia
- Stegosauria
- StegosaurusStegosaurusStegosaurus is a genus of armored stegosaurid dinosaur. They lived during the Late Jurassic period , some 155 to 150 million years ago in what is now western North America. In 2006, a specimen of Stegosaurus was announced from Portugal, showing that they were present in Europe as well...
sp.
- Stegosaurus
- Ornithopoda
- Iguanodontia
- UteodonUteodonUteodon is a genus of herbivorous iguanodontian dinosaur. It is a basal iguanodontian which lived during the upper Jurassic period in what is now Uintah County, Utah. It is known from the middle of the Brushy Basin Member, Morrison Formation. This genus was named by Andrew T. McDonald in 2011 and...
aphanoecetes {h) - Dryosauridae
- DryosaurusDryosaurusDryosaurus is a genus of an ornithopod dinosaur that lived in the Late Jurassic period. It was an iguanodont . Fossils have been found in the western United States, and were first discovered in the late 19th century...
altus
- Dryosaurus
- Stegosauria
Echo Park Dam controversy
U.S. Bureau of ReclamationUnited States Bureau of Reclamation
The United States Bureau of Reclamation , and formerly the United States Reclamation Service , is an agency under the U.S...
plans for a ten-dam, billion dollar Colorado River Storage Project
Colorado River Storage Project
The Colorado River Storage Project is a United States Bureau of Reclamation project designed to oversee the development of the upper Colorado River basin...
began to arouse opposition in the early 1950s when it was announced that one of the proposed dams would be at Echo Park
Echo Park (Colorado)
Echo Park is a remote river bottom surrounded by canyon walls on the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument. It was first mapped and given its name by the Powell Geographic Expedition in 1869. A proposed dam at Echo Park turned into a nationwide environmental controversy in the early 1950s...
, in the middle of Dinosaur National Monument. The controversy assumed major proportions, dominating conservation politics for years. David Brower, executive director of the Sierra Club
Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by the conservationist and preservationist John Muir, who became its first president...
, and Howard Zahniser
Howard Zahniser
Howard Clinton Zahniser was an American environmental activist. Zahniser is noted for being the primary author of the Wilderness Act of 1964....
of The Wilderness Society led an unprecedented nationwide campaign to preserve the free-flowing rivers and scenic canyons of the Green and Yampa Rivers. They argued that, if a national monument was not safe from development, how could any wildland be kept intact?
On the other side of the argument were powerful members of Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
from western states, who were committed to the project in order to secure water rights, obtain cheap hydroelectric power and develop reservoirs as tourist destinations. After much debate, Congress settled on a compromise that eliminated Echo Park Dam and authorized the rest of the project. The Colorado River Storage Project Act became law on April 11, 1956. It stated, “that no dam or reservoir constructed under the authorization of the Act shall be within any National Park or Monument.”
Historians view the Echo Park Dam controversy as signaling the start of an era that includes major conservationist political successes such as the Wilderness Act
Wilderness Act
The Wilderness Act of 1964 was written by Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society. It created the legal definition of wilderness in the United States, and protected some 9 million acres of federal land. The result of a long effort to protect federal wilderness, the Wilderness Act was signed...
and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.