Dinosaur National Monument Quarry

Dinosaur National Monument Quarry

The "Dinosaur Wall" located within the Quarry building in Dinosaur National Monument consists of a steeply tilted rock layer which contains hundreds of dinosaur fossils. The rock has been chipped away to reveal the fossil bones for public viewing.

Bodies of dinosaurs and other animals were carried by an ancient river system to this location. The pile of sediments were later buried and lithified into solid rock.

The layers of rock were later uplifted and tilted to their present angle by the mountain building forces. The relentless forces of erosion exposed the layers at the surface to be found by paleontologists.

The dinosaur fossil beds (bone beds) were discovered in 1909 by Earl Douglass, a paleontologist working and collecting for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

He and his crews excavated thousands of fossils and shipped them back to the museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for study and display.

Location

North of Jensen
Uintah County
Utah, USA

Getting There

Dinosaur National Monument Quarry is located in the northeast corner of Utah and the northwest corner of Colorado. The nearest town to the Quarry Exhibit Hall on the Utah side of the monument is Jensen, which is about 20 miles east of Vernal, Utah.

There is no public transportation available to the monument. The only way to access the monument is by car or private tour. However, the nearest Greyhound bus station is in Vernal, and there are car rental options available in the city if you do not have access to a car.

Nearby Airports

This is a list of primary airports in Utah that have scheduled passenger service on commercial airlines.