Thanks to all who wrote in last week with answers to the stalactite trivia question! The correct answer is 100–300 years. This week, let's check out some exciting spots for geology and fossils!
One locale where AAPG Foundation has been working to support continuing education and research in geology is Dinosaur Ridge, in Morrison, Colorado. It’s a special place. We’ll start today’s journey there, then continue on to another highlight in the Morrison Formation: Dinosaur National Monument.
Sharon Lyon
Editor, GeoLifestyle
Dinosaur Ridge, Morrison, Colorado
Large footprints of hadrosaurs and smaller footprints of theropods at Dinosaur Ridge
Located 15 miles west of Denver, Dinosaur Ridge is the most-visited dinosaur track site in the United States.
History:
In 1876, Arthur Lakes, a professor at what is now the Colorado School of Mines, discovered dinosaur bones in a hogback in the Morrison area. He sent bones to Othniel Charles Marsh, professor of paleontology at Yale University, who later employed Lakes to dig for more bones. Several quarries were excavated along the ridge.
In 1937, when Alameda Parkway was constructed, dynamite blasting revealed dinosaur footprints on the ridge. More than 300 dinosaur and crocodile footprints, in 37 trackways, are now exposed at the site.
In 1973, the Department of the Interior included Dinosaur Ridge within the newly designated Morrison Fossil Area National Natural Landmark.
Geology of the area: The rocks on the west side of Dinosaur Ridge are part of the Morrison Formation. In the late Jurassic, this area of Colorado was covered in braided and meandering streams in a vast floodplain.
The original 1877 quarry dug into these 150-million-year-old siltstones and sandstones. Bones discovered here included those of Apatosaurus, Allosaurus, Camarasaurus, and Stegosaurus.
Lying stratigraphically above the Morrison, on the east side of the ridge, is the Cretaceous-age Dakota Formation. These rocks, mostly sandstones, were deposited on a beach along the Cretaceous Interior Seaway.
In these 100-million-year-old Cretaceous rocks, footprints of adult and juvenile hadrosaurs are interspersed with tracks of small, bird-like carnivores, such as Gallimimus or Ornithomimus. Theropod courtship scratches and swim marks from 15-meter-long crocodiles are also preserved.
The Bone Wars: Two paleontologists—Edward Drinker Cope of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia and Othniel Charles Marsh of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University—had a falling out and spent their lifetimes trying to ruin each other’s reputations.
Using bribery, deception, and theft from each other’s digs, both men obtained dinosaur bones from the American West. The bones at Dinosaur Ridge contributed to what became known as the Bone Wars.
Trip tips:
Purchase tickets for a shuttle bus tour or a guided walking tour at the Main Visitors Center at Dinosaur Ridge.
The exhibit hall contains dinosaur bones, fossil replicas, and paleo-murals.
You can walk or bike the paved two-mile Dinosaur Ridge Trail for free. Allow yourself 1.5–2 hours to walk the entire way, and bring water, especially in the summer.
AAPG Foundation in action: The AAPG Foundation has granted more than $165,000 to the Friends of Dinosaur Ridge to support many projects during the past 11 years, including the remodeling of the Martin G. Lockley Discovery Center.
The most recent grant sponsors important improvements and digital updates as part of the Dinosaur Ridge Paleontology Data Preservation Project.
This project aims to preserve and digitize paleontological collections and archives using current data management processes.
The ultimate goal is to protect scientific information from loss or deterioration, keeping the information available to educators, researchers, students, and the general public through the development of a digital library.
Take the 360-degree virtual tour of Dinosaur Ridge here.
Those in the Denver area should check out Dinosaur Ridge's upcoming gala on April 5! The theme is Dinos, Diners, and Drive-ins. Learn more here.
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Part of the Wall of Bones, Dinosaur National Monument
Next, we’ll follow the Morrison Formation westward to Dinosaur National Monument, located on the border of Utah and Colorado on the eastern margin of the Uinta Mountains.
This site is one of America’s most spectacular dinosaur locales. Here, you can view the Wall of Bones, with more than 1,500 dinosaur fossils exposed on a dipping surface.
Geology of the area:
More than 20 layers of late Jurassic-age (150 Ma) sedimentary rocks are here, representing paleoenvironments of desert, ocean, and river floodplains. The dinosaur bones are in the fluvial sandstone deposits of the Brushy Basin member of the Morrison Formation.
During the Laramide Orogeny, the rocks were uplifted into an anticline over Split Mountain. Later erosion revealed the edges of these dipping limbs.
In 1909, Earl Douglass of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh discovered vertebrae eroding out of one of the layers. These bones were part of the most complete Apatosaurus skeleton ever discovered.
Other dinosaurs uncovered here include Barosaurus, Camarasaurus, Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, Camptosaurus, Dryosaurus, Allosaurus, and Ceratosaurus.
One of Douglass’ dreams was to leave a quarry surface with bones in situ. This became the Wall of Bones now visible in the Quarry Exhibit Hall. Most of the bones in the wall belong to sauropod dinosaurs, although three species of theropods also occur. Many of the bones are disarticulated and some show teeth marks indicating scavenging.
Trip tips:
There are two visitor centers, one in Utah and one in Colorado. The Quarry Visitor Center, outside of Jensen, Utah, allows entrance to the Quarry Exhibit Hall and Wall of Bones via shuttle bus. You can take the shuttle both ways, but we opted to hike back downhill along the scenic trail.
Although the Wall of Bones is a highlight, the Monument encompasses more than 200,000 acres.
Other available activities include hiking, camping, and rafting down the Green and Yampa Rivers.
Nearby highlight: Be sure to stop at the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum in nearby Vernal, Utah. The Grand Jurassic Gallery of dinosaur skeletons and the outdoor dinosaur sculpture garden are must-sees.
Recommended Read: DragonTeeth by Michael Crichton
Photo source: Amazon.com
Michael Crichton’s Dragon Teeth tells the tale of the Bone Wars as seen through the eyes of a fictional student from Yale, William Johnson. Johnson initially works for Marsh, only to be abandoned by his employer at a railway station in Cheyenne. He then manages to join Cope’s crew, spending the summer discovering Brontosaurus bones and teeth in the wilds of Montana.
Can Johnson and the crew, who face attempted poisoning, attacks by the Sioux, and threats by outlaws, get the bones back east?
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