Here's a look at where you can launch your own paleo-discovery quest. The flags represent paleontology or museum sites (in numbered sequence) from the south end of Utah to the north.
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1: ST GEORGE
Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson
Farm
Noted for: More than 2,000 tracks from ancient creatures, including
dinosaurs.
Access: Open to visitors. Information: www.sgcity.org/dinotrax/indexmain.php
2: KANAB
Grand Staircase Escalante
Noted for: HagryphusHistory: This desolate terrain, among the last parts
of the continental U.S. to be mapped, is yielding new species.
Access: Monument open; active sites closed. Information: http://www.ut.blm.gov/monument/
3: MOAB
Dalton Wells Quarry
Noted for: Titanosaur, Camarasaurus
History: Self-taught paleontologist “Dinosaur” Jim Jensen
and former BYU master’s student Brooks Britt, who is now a BYU
faculty member, worked this site in the mid-1970s and found new kinds
of Titanosaur.
4: GREEN RIVER
Crystal Geyser
Noted for: Falcarious utahensisHistory: Among newer sites on the Cedar
Mountain formation. A fossil thief unearthed the site in the late 1990s
and eventually turned it over to researchers.
Access: Closed to the public.
5: MOAB
Gaston Quarry
Noted for: Utahraptor, GastoniaHistory: College of Eastern Utah works
site discovered in the 1990s; produced Utahraptor.
Access: Active dig site closed to public.
6: FERRON
North Horn Formation
Noted for: Alamosaurus, Torosaurus, Tyrannosaurus
History: Smithsonian Institute's Charles Gilmore uncovered several species
in the late 1930s; it remains only site to have remains of a Tyrannosaur
and sauropods.
Access: Not an active site.
7: ELMO
Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry
Noted for: Allosaur discovery
History: University of Utah took bones out in the late 1920s. Princeton
University did extensive work, with backing from Malcomb Lloyd, in 1939-41.
Lloyd's work, along with the site’s proximity to Cleveland, Utah,
gave the quarry its name. William Lee Stokes revived the site in 1960s.
The U. is working the site.
Access: Closed until the fall.
Information: http://www.
blm.gov/utah/ price/quarry.htm
8: VERNAL
Utah Field House of Natural History
Noted for: New building has skeletons, hands-on activities for kids
and an outside area filled with giant models of dinosaurs.
Access: Open to visitors. Information: http://www.stateparks.utah.gov
9: JENSEN
Dinosaur National Monument
Noted for: Camarasaur, Barosaur
History: Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum sent Earl Douglass to find
specimens in 1909. Site was active until mid-1920s, when last major
skeletons were shipped. Bones remain in rock face for viewing. BYU has
an active site.
Access: Monument open. Active site is closed.
Information: http://www.nps.gov/dino
Utah Musuem of Natural History
Noted for: Displays of native dinosaursFeatures: Visitors can look into
a lab where volunteers are preparing fossils for study.
Access: Open to visitors.
Information: http://www.umnh.utah.edu
12: OGDEN
Eccles Dinosaur Park/Museum
Noted for: Kid-friendly outdoor collection of dinosaur models that
sometimes growl.Features: Hands-on exhibits and a yet-to-be named
sauropod dinosaur.
Access: Open to visitors.
Information: http://www.dinosaurpark.org
WHY
UTAH? Those desolate places harbor ancient remnants
The
badlands of Utah may make for paltry grazing, but they provide
a bounty for paleontologists. Utah, along with other parts of the Colorado
Plateau, contain outcrops of rock formed millions of years ago. As wind
and rain erode rock formations, new fossils come to light. Utah would not
be as fortunate covered with temperate forests. Trees prevent erosion and
their roots can destroy bones buried beneath. If Utah had too little rainfall,
erosion would be hindered.
During part of the Cretaceous era, an interior
sea covered much of Utah. The land may have looked like southern Louisiana.
Tropical storms racing across flood plains brought mud sediments that buried
freshly killed creatures. In some cases, the rapid burials have preserved
skin impressions.
Latest
Finds In Utah
Utahraptor Name means: "Raptor of Utah" Length: 20 feet Era: Early Cretaceous
First discovered in 1991 in eastern Utah. Unearthed shortly after the movie
Jurassic Park came out and gave scientific credence to a similar dinosaur
created for the movie.
Falcarius Utahensis Name means: "Utah's sickle maker" Height: 13 feet Era: Early Cretaceous
Discovered in southern Utah in the late 1990s. Believed to be a transition
species in one family's move from meat-eating to plant-eating.
Hagryphus Giganteus Name Means: "Giant four-footed, bird-like god of the
Western desert" Height: 7 feet Era: Early Cretaceous
Discovered in 2001 in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Paleontologists
found a foot and a hand from this ancient creature which is the first dinosaur
to be named from the monument.
Classic
Utah Finds
Allosaurus Fragilis Name means: "Fragile other lizard" Length: 30-40 feet Era: Late Jurassic
First found in 1870s
Utah's state fossil. Many of the best examples came from Emery County's
Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry in the 1960s.
Camarasaurus Name means: "Chambered reptile" Length: 60 feet Era: Late Jurassic
First found in Colorado, 1877
The quarry that is now Dinosaur National Monument in eastern Utah produced
several examples of this creature.
Diplodocus Name means: "Double Beam" Length: 90 feet Era: Late Jurassic
First found in Colorado, 1877
The name refers to the shape of the bones found in the tail.
Then
and Now
Techniques
for finding dinosaurs remain unchanged since the first paleontologists
began walking through badlands in the late 1800s.
Searchers look for bits of fossilized bone on the ground
and head up the slope to seek the source. Most work in the field is still
performed the old-fashioned way, using shovels and pick axes to dig out
bones. Modern researchers continue to use a mix of plaster and burlap to
protect fossils on their journey back to the laboratory.
But the differences become noticeable when the lab work
begins. Scientists can now use advanced microscopes to examine bone detail
and employ CT scans to see what is inside fossils. See
more photos from a dig near Green River, Utah.
Sources: Utah Geological Association, Utah Geological Survey, Utah Museum
of Natural History, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Dinosaurus,
The Dinosauria
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WHY
UTAH?
Techniques
for finding dinosaurs remain unchanged since the first paleontologists
began walking through badlands in the late 1800s. 
