The exciting inside!

Okay!  In the last posting, I showed some pics of the outside of Dinosaur National Monument quarry.  Now for the exciting inside.  The pic you see is a head of an Allosaurus, not the one standing.  Ha ha.  Grandma Zucc appears very confident, but I can assure you that if this magnificent animal were alive, she would moving very quickly, even with her artificial knees.  Allosaurus was a meat eater that lived 155 to 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic period.  

On the wall of bones is a well preserved head of a Camarasaurus.  It's size was about 50 feet in length, and about 50 tons.  The ranger answering questions, said that this animal was a plant eater, but I think if I were confronting this creature, I wouldn't be too sure.  those teeth look pretty sharp to me!

I was impressed spacious inside of the building.

The following is a close up view of the bones in the previous pic.  The ranger said that the animals had died some where up stream, then the bones washed down and collected in this area.  The bones are a mixture of a lot of dinosaurs.  It is up to our paleontologists to correctly reconstruct them so that they can be displayed.                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Andy is explaining to Sharon some of the interesting things of this Allosaurus.  Andy likes to speak with her hands.

I really get a kick out of Joe.  His smile is like Erin's smile, pretty cheesy.  At least they both have well-taken-care-of teeth.  I guess you might say that I am happy also, even with the silly baseball cap.  Actually I bought it in Escalante, Utah during a trip to collect some petrified wood in the area.  By the way, and just for the record, we did collect it legally.

Dinosaur National Monument has a scenic drive within it's borders.   There are some great overlooks.  In this pic you can see two definite formations.  The whole area, I believe is a giant anticline, as indicated by the upward sloping strata.  

Looking south from the quarry building, you can see the meandering, lower Green River, which eventually makes its way to converge with the Colorado River.

Joe is looking at the view of the Green from the upper deck of the quarry building.  The formation you can see in the background is the Morrison.

My next posting will feature pics of modern day dinosaurs found in the Vernal area.  They are really creative representations, and so cool looking, so please check back in a few days.  Thanks.