Dinosaur Hunting - Dig Up the History

Dinosaurs and other fossils in the Royal Gorge Region Visitors to Royal Gorge Country have many opportunities to experience activities related to dinosaur and other types of fossils. You can visit museums, see trackway sites, walk discovery trails and even try to find fossils yourself. So as you plan your visit to Royal Gorge Country add these places where kids of all ages can have fun. They can learn about the dinosaurs and other animals and plants that lived here when the area was in the tropics or was covered by inland seas.

The original Jurassic park? Garden Park Fossil Area, located just north of Cañon City on the Shelf Road, is a 3,600 acre area that has been producing significant dinosaur fossils for nearly 125 years. Most of the Jurassic dinosaurs on display at Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History are from this area. Three stegosaurus skeletons including Colorado's state fossil are from this area. A great place to start your visit is the Dinosaur Depot Museum in Cañon City. Displays in the Museum include the most recently recovered and most complete stegosaurus found in 1992. You can see the laboratory where that stegosaurus was prepared for display and research and talk with paleontologists who work with dinosaurs. Kids can also explore fossils and where they are found in the Discovery Room. The Museum has guides available to the Garden Park Fossil Area where you can see the places where these dinosaurs came from. Another guide will help you find the Skyline Drive Trackway Site where dinosaurs walked along the beach of an inland sea. Dinosaur Depot: 330 Royal Gorge Blvd, Cañon City • 800-987-6379 •
www.dinosaurdepot.com

How are replica dinosaur skeletons made? The Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park, CO, is the home of an awe-inspiring display of dinosaurs, prehistoric marine reptiles, pterosaurs and fish of the late Cretaceous inland sea. Operated by Triebold Paleontology Inc., known the world over for exciting discoveries, traveling exhibits, and museum-quality, cast fossils, visitors can see over 30 skeletons on display supplemented with graphics and life-restoration sculptures that help visualize these animals in life and the environments where they lived. Visitors can see the entire process to better understand how these fossils are freed from the rock in which they were found, how they are restored, and how they are cast into display fossils seen in museums throughout the world. Because the center is a showroom for specimens before they are sold and shipped, visitors have the opportunity to see rotating exhibits. Dinosaur Resource Centers:
201 S. Fairview St., Highway 24, Woodland Park, CO •
www.rmdrc.com • 719-686-1820.

Redwood trees in Colorado? Underneath a grassy mountain valley meadow in central Colorado in the shadow of Pikes Peak lays one of the richest and most diverse fossil deposits in the world. The deposit contains petrified redwood stumps and thousands of very detailed fossils of insects and plants. A story of a very different, prehistoric Colorado is revealed in the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, north of Cañon City on the Gold Belt tour (see page 24). The Fossil Beds are the site of an ancient forest that was unlike any now in Colorado. The forest was rapidly buried by volcanic mudflows. The most visible and spectacular of the resulting fossils are the massive petrified stumps of redwoods and other trees. The stumps, one nearly 41 feet in diameter, turned to stone as minerals seeped into the wood and gradually crystallized. Perhaps more interesting are the literally thousands of plants and insects that have been preserved as impression and compression fossils. Fossil leaves are found as well as twigs, seeds, cones, flowers and pollen grains. Insects are found as well and like the plant fragments are preserved as life-size impressions that usually are color-enhanced by minerals. The National Monument offers trails that interpret the redwood stumps and the mudflows that buried the fossils as well as today's mountain valley ecology. Most of Florissant's fossils are exhibited in museums and universities throughout the world. However a small on-site visitor center does display a few of them. 2 miles south of Florissant on Teller County 1• 719-748-3253 www.nps.gov/fflo

Can I collect fossils? A frequently asked question is "can we collect fossils at these sites". Since these sites are protected the answer is unfortunately no. The Florissant fossil beds are a good example of why this is true. The fossil beds were very different when they were first found. Large petrified redwood trees that once were attached to the stumps laid on the surface -- an attraction to the nearby communities. As people visited, they took souvenirs home with them. This included the impression and compression fossils as well. Who knows what valuable information has been lost, each fossil is an irreplaceable piece in the puzzle of our understanding of the past.

However, a private collection site near the town of Florissant makes collecting fossils available to visitors to the area. The Florissant Fossil Quarry has been in the Clare family for over 50 years. Located within a quarter of a mile of Florissant, the quarry is available for area visitors to experience the wonder of finding fossils. Visitors to the Quarry are shown how to separate the thin layers of the 35 million year old Florissant lake bed deposits to find fossil insects, leaves, twigs, and pine cones. The quarry has also produced fish and small animals. You will most certainly find fossils and unless the fossil is significant to science, you will be allowed to keep them. 1/4 mile south of Florissant on Teller County 1 • www.members.tripod.com/florissantfossils • 719-748-1002.

When did dinosaurs walk here? Picketwire Canyonlands is located just south of La Junta, CO. Visitors can see a quarter-mile stretch of the bank of the Purgatoire River with over 1,300 tracks where apatosaurs and allosaurs, both juvenile and adults were walking. You will see the largest set of dinosaur tracks in North America and you will see a place where dinosaurs were living and interacting. The site is spectacular, but it is challenging to visit. There is an 8 mile hike from the Corral parking area. Four-wheel vehicles can shorten the walk by 3 miles by driving to the Withers Canyon trailhead. When you reach the river, you will have to wade through some cold water to cross over the tracks, but that will be refreshing since most summer days are very hot in the canyon. This trail is for experienced hikers only and you need to plan for hot weather carrying ample water. Guided tours are available during limited times in the early summer for visitors with their own four-wheel drive, high clearance vehicle.
www.fs.fed.us/r2/psicc/coma/palo • 719-553-1400.