Why Utah is America's Real-Life Jurassic Park

Cleveland-Lloyd is a working quarry, where you
can sometimes watch paleontologists in action.
© Dave Webb

I've pulled the title for this post from this interesting report on TravelWithKids.About.com. It talks about many of the great places in Utah where you can see and learn about dinosaur fossils.

Below I give the introduction from the article. It is worth reading the whole thing.

Exploring North America's greatest dinosaur graveyard

With "Jurassic World," the fourth installment in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park franchise, set to hit theaters in June 2015, interest in learning about dinosaurs is on the rise. And there's no place in North America with a richer dinosaur legacy than Utah.

The article talks about the famous spots – Dinosaur National Monument, the North American Museum of Ancient Life, the Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry and a few others.

I'll have to do a tour one of these days, get photos and report on the new ones. It does not mention The Utah Field House of Natural History, in Vernal, which is a wonderful spot.

So many recent dinosaur discovers have come out of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and BLM has some of them displayed at its Big Water Visitor Center. I don't know that anyone has done a good article on that new facility. I'll have to pop down and take some photos.

A new facility is being built in Moab to display and protect some of the area's dinosaur tracks, after the infamous theft of a fossil footprint from a nearby trackway. I'll watch and report on that facility as it opens.

- Dave Webb