Another quick stop where we only visited the visitor center and the Quarry Exhibit Hall. This exhibit is a building that is built around a cliff that has over 1,500 dinosaur fossils! It gives visitors an opportunity to see dinosaur fossils, in the cliff, as they are normally found by scientists! This hall is just a small part of the park as the entire park encompasses 210,844 acres! We all hope to visit the monument again someday to see more of what it has to offer. It served as a nice place to stop at before we checked into our hotel. Also it allowed us an easy day of exploration as we adjusted to Utah's altitude and higher temperatures!
It is actually rare for there to be so many fossils in one place and what you see is just a fraction of what was removed and what may still be buried out of sight. Scientists believe that there was a prolonged drought causing a mass die off followed by torrential rains that washed all the bones into a river bed and covered the bones with sand.
Fossils will only form if the body/bones are covered by soil and within a anerobic environment, otherwise scavengers will carry the bones off and bacteria will completely decompose the bones. When buried the bones are slowly replaced by soil that is filling in the space which eventually turns into rock.
Click here to visit the National Parks Service page for Dinosaur National Monument
Click here to view the photo album