Dinosaur National Monument
Dinosaur National Monument | ||
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At the Dinosaur National Monument during a guided tour | ||
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Location: | Colorado , Utah , United States | |
Next city: | Jensen | |
Surface: | 832.4 km² | |
Founding: | October 4, 1915 | |
Visitors: | 230,900 (2007) |
The Dinosaur National Monument [ daɪnəsɔːr - ] (German dinosaur - National Monument ) is a protected area of the United States of America on the southeastern slopes of the Uinta Mountains - a mountain range of the Rocky Mountains . It covers an area of 832.4 km² on both sides of the borders of Colorado and Utah , at the confluence of the Green River and Yampa River . In addition to the Dinosaur Quarry 40 ° 26 ′ 26 ″ N , 109 ° 18 ′ 4 ″ W (dinosaur site; only 0.3 km² of the monument, new excavation hall since 2015), the gorges of Green and Yampa River are among the main attractions of the National monument.
history
The area around what is now Dinosaur Quarry was first discovered in August 1909 by Earl Douglass , a paleontologist from the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh , who found innumerable body fossils there and then sent them to the Carnegie Museum for further research. In the period that followed, thousands of individual bones and some well-preserved skeletons of dinosaurs were excavated until the area was finally placed under protection as a national monument by US President Woodrow Wilson in 1915 . Until 1938 it only covered the 0.3 km² around the dinosaur sites in the US state of Utah , before the gorges of the Green and Yampa Rivers were also included in the monument with an enormous expansion to 832.4 km².
Web links
- National Park Service: Dinosaur National Monument (official site; English)