Overview
- Asphalt removal near the Quarry Exhibit Hall on Sept. 16 exposed dinosaur-bearing sandstone, prompting an immediate pause of construction under monitoring protocols.
- Between mid-September and mid-October, crews removed roughly 3,000 pounds of fossil-bearing rock that included 14 tail vertebrae, a humerus, radius, ulna, tibia, fibula, and several toes.
- Park scientists say the bones belong to a large, long-necked sauropod most likely a Diplodocus from the Late Jurassic.
- The recovered material is being cleaned and studied at the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum in Vernal, with select pieces on view there and at the monument’s Quarry Exhibit Hall.
- The find occurred in an area last excavated in 1924, and paleontologists expect the specimen continues into the hillside with additional fieldwork deferred until after the snow season.