National Monument Museum

1 Pages 311 Words

On August 17, 1909, 20 miles east of Vernal, Utah, paleontologist Earl Douglass (who worked for the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) discovered a 200 foot long sandbar of sorts which was layered with prehistoric plant and animal fossils. About 350 tons of fossils, including full skeletons and remains of some dinosaur species that were previously unknown, were excavated by Douglass and his crew. A quarry was built on the site and it was designated a national monument in 1915 by President Woodrow Wilson.
A year round visitor center has been built in Vernal, Utah. Here you can see over 2,000 dinosaur bones that are exposed in the sand wall of the quarry. Visitors can watch paleontologists chip away the sandstone to expose the fossilized dinosaur bones. They can also see the dinosaur fossils being cleaned and preserved in the laboratory.
So, why are there so many dinosaurs found in this area? According to the dinosaur National Monument, a river flowed through this area 150 million years ago. Dinosaurs died near the river and “during the rainy seasons, the river overflowed its banks and picked up some of the dead dinosaurs lying near by. Some of the bodies were whole but many had been eaten by other animals”. The bones were then carried down the river into the main channel where the current buried them with sand and gravel. The quarry was that main channel. (http://www.nps.gov/dino/dinos.htm)
The main part of the Dinosaur national Monument is in Utah but it stretches into Colorado. Along with seeing the paleontologist work up close, in both states you can take hikes through mountains, plateaus, and deserts. There are also campgrounds near the visitor center. If you are in for some white water rafting than you can do that to on the Green and Yampa Rivers....