• Established as a National Monument - 1915
• 210,278 acres
• Northeastern Utah - Northwestern Colorado
• Northern Edge - Colorado Plateau
Dinosaur National Monument
• Established to protect a quarry of dinosaur bones
• Dr. Earl Douglass - 1906
• Carnegie Museum of History
• Visitors Center covers quarry
Dinosaur National Monument
• Discovery of this site - result of the activities of the Cope-Marsh
expeditions - 1870’s
• O. C. Marsh - E. D. Cope
• The Bone Wars
What are Fossils?
• Definition: The remains or trace of organisms preserved from the geologic
past........
Fossil Preservation
• Why is it so unlikely that any individual organism will become a fossil?
• Scavengers and Decay
Requirements for Fossil Preservation
a. hard parts
b. rapid burial
Fossil Preservation
• Fossils = components of sedimentary rocks
• Types of preservation
• Unaltered Skeleton
• Petrification/Permineralization
– Wood & bone
– Pores filled with quartz