DESERT SOUTHWEST
In Utah, a treasure-trove of dinosaurs awaits
Moab, St. George and Provo are just a few of the prime prehistoric spots where ancient fossils are just part of the landscape.
Moab, Utah
The bluffs and hills on the outskirts of this mountain biking hub were as red as a sunburn and barren, save for a few juniper trees and clumps of rabbit brush.
As I hiked up a gentle slope to a flat stretch of sandstone, I saw them -- bigger and more clearly defined than I had expected. Dinosaur tracks. I crouched by the gnarly three-toed prints and ran my fingers along the curve of the claw and pressed my palm inside the hubcap-size impression. It was a creepy feeling occupying the same spot as an SUV-sized lizard that could have devoured me like a squirming chicken McNugget.
When the giant meat eater, probably an allosaurus, walked across this spot about 150 million years ago, the landscape was vastly different, a tropical environment on the shores of a vast inland sea, lush with ferns, cycads, conifers and ginkgo trees. Here, the beast's feet sank into a sandbar. Over time, seismic forces buried, solidified and then pushed that sandbar to the surface, retaining in astonishing detail the prints of that long-extinct monster.
It's a happy geological fluke that made Utah one of the world's best spots to hunt for dinosaurs. Layers of sedimentary rock hold clues to the lives of prehistoric plants and animals.
Throughout much of the rest of the country, this fossil-rich layer is buried under prairies and forests. But not in the badlands of Utah, where the stratum rests near the surface, even along hiking trails like this one near Moab, a 10-hour drive from Los Angeles.
As a result, Utah's museums have easy access to a treasure trove of clues to the Earth's distant past.
With plans to see Utah's best dinosaur exhibits, I consulted several of its top paleontologists on the best way to make a four-day road trip across the Beehive State.
Dinosaur experts, almost giddy with excitement, told me now is the best time to visit, during an era of astounding discoveries. Thanks to improved research technology and an exploding interest in the field, paleontologists are digging up new dinosaur species around the world at a rate of 10 to 20 each year.
Utah's quarries have been at the forefront of this trend, producing such discoveries as a strange duck-billed herbivore, a new horned quadruped, plus evidence that some dinosaurs tried to fish.
So in early September, I drove the length and breadth of Utah -- 978 miles -- past red bluffs, towering hoodoos and multicolored mesas. Here are my favorite stops.
ST. GEORGE DINOSAUR DISCOVERY CENTER AT JOHNSON FARM
St. George
Eight years ago, Sheldon Johnson, a retired optometrist, was prepping a parcel of land for resale outside of St. George when he spotted something in the soil. About 20 feet below the surface he uncovered thick mudstone slabs imprinted with thousands of dinosaur prints, including skin impressions and tracks from what paleontologists believe was the lanky, fast-moving coelophysis of the early Jurassic period.
Instead of yanking the solid slabs from the ground, Johnson notified paleontologists and city officials, who later built a museum around the 200-million-year-old impressions. Among the exhibits is the world's largest single slab of stone containing dinosaur prints, a block weighing more than 26 tons.
From unearthed bones, paleontologists learn about the size, anatomy and diet of a dinosaur, among other characteristics. But from track prints, experts get clues on dinosaurs' movements -- how they sat, ran, turned and hunted. Andrew C. Milner, the city's paleontologist, believes scratch marks on several slabs suggest some dinosaurs swam in the shallows pursuing fish.
During a close look at a rare dinosaur skin impression, I got the frightening image of a lizard-skinned beast the size of a semi-truck stomping across the landscape.
The drive: I started in the heat of Las Vegas and drove two hours across mostly arid desert along Interstate 15 to St. George in the southwest corner of Utah.
The vitals: Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. Admission: $5 for adults, $2 for children. 2180 E. Riverside Drive, St. George; (435) 574-3466 or go to www.dinotrax.com.
Mill Canyon Dinosaur Trail and Copper Ridge Dinosaur Trackway
Moab
Hiking along a gravel path, I stopped to examine a sandstone shelf, the earth grainy and tinted rusty and brown from oxidation. I had driven 13 miles north of Moab to a hiking trail on U.S. Bureau of Land Management territory in Mill Canyon. And there, exposed to the mercy of the elements and curious visitors were dozens of dinosaur bones, black, gray and grainy, like wood. The disjointed bones jutting out of the shelf were part of the vertebrae of a 20-ton camasaurus, according to an interpretive sign near the bones. Nearby, I ran my hands over a diamond-shape bone embedded in rock -- the femur of an allosaurus, a smaller cousin of the terrible Tyrannosaurus rex.
The BLM's policy about fossils on public land is a bit schizophrenic. The bureau installs interpretive markers on the sites but doesn't post roadside signs for fear too many visitors will "love the fossils to death," according to BLM officials. As a result, only the most determined visitors see the fossils. As a favor to the BLM, I offer this warning: Damaging or removing a dinosaur or other vertebrate fossil from state or federal land without a permit is illegal.
The nearby Copper Ridge Dinosaur Trackway was slightly easier to find. After hiking about 100 yards up a marked trail from a gravel parking lot, I came to several 150-million-year-old prints on a flat rock path, as clear as if they had been made that week. The three-toed allosaurus prints cross the path diagonally, but the bigger prints, probably made by a apatosaurus, seem to make a sharp right turn, a move that paleontologists say is highly unusual.
The drive: Take your time driving Interstate 70 across the heart of Utah from St. George to Moab. Don't rush the views of chocolate hoodoos and sherbet-colored mesas, and don't miss the spectacular vista of Castle Valley at a rest area near mile marker 104. In the afternoon sun, the valley shone pink, green and gray under a partly cloudy sky.
The vitals: Both track sites are open year-round. For Mill Canyon, take U.S. 191 north from Moab for 13 miles and turn left on Mill Canyon Road after passing mile marker 141. After reaching a T in the dirt road, turn left and look for a gravel parking lot and an interpretive sign. For Copper Ridge, drive past mile marker 148, along U.S. 191, about 23 miles north of Moab, then turn right on the next dirt road and follow the signs for two miles to a gravel parking lot. For more information, contact the BLM's Moab Field Office, 82 E. Dogwood, Moab; (435) 259-2100 or go to http://www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/prog/more/cultural/Paleontology/canyon_country_
Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry
Cleveland
Beginning in the 1930s, near the tiny town of Cleveland, about 30 miles south of Price, paleontologists started to uncover the densest collection of fossils in the world -- more than 12,000 bones in one-quarter of an acre. But more surprising than the sheer number was the mystery raised by the finding. Why so many bones in one spot? And why are most of the bones from juvenile and adolescent carnivores such as the allosaurus?
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