Helen Hankins, State BLM Director, and her Executive Assistant, Jamie Harrison, were accompanied by State BLM paleontologist Harley Armstrong on a western Colorado tour to familiarize the new director with the paleo resources in this region. Their stops included Dinosaur Journey, Dinosaur Hill, Fruita Paleo Area, Riggs Hill, Cactus Park and the Mygatt Moore Quarry.
It is officially dig season at the Mygatt-Moore Quarry! Our first dig was on May 25th and went very well. Dinosaur Journey volunteer and castmaker Dorothy found an Allosaurus tooth tip - our first of the year! On June 4th a beautiful Diplodocus tooth with wear facets on two sides was found in the quarry. This was the first [...]
The Museum of Western Colorado’s 11th Annual Re-Enactors’ Day was held on April 30, 2010 at the Museum of the West. The day was a great success with over 500 students, teachers and chaperons attending. The event featured blacksmiths, Museum volunteers, archaeologists, Dutch oven cooking, military re-enactors, saddlemakers, gold panners and many more historical [...]
Canyonlands by Night… Canadian Rockies… Museums of Utah… Crow Canyon… Telluride… The Alaska Experience… Black Canyon of the Gunnison Hike… Leadville… Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta… Durango Adventure… Grand Canyon and Havasupai…
Trips far away and in our own backyard.
We make the travel arrangements, do the driving, include many meals and admissions - and, last but not least, [...]
Our trilobite collecting trip went very well. We arrived in the Marble Mountains of California on April 5th after fighting rain, wind and snow on our drive through Utah. As we attempted to set camp up we had to fight very strong wind in order to get our tents up.
Two of the tents were blowing [...]
Elmer Riggs’ Discovery at Dinosaur Hill
In 1900 Elmer Riggs, from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, discovered what is now the bones of a 70 foot long, 30 ton Apatosaurus at Dinosaur Hill. He returned in 1901 with a crew and removed what turned out to be a major part of this dinosaur. [...]
Next week we are headed out to the Marble Mountains south of the Mojave National Preserve of California to collect trilobites from the Lower Cambrian Latham Shale, below cliffs of Chambless Limestone. For the past two years the Museum has taken a collecting trip out to this area and returned with many specimens for the Museum collections, research [...]
Fruitadens, the Smallest Plant Eating Dinosaur in the World!
A small but excited crowd was given the pleasure of being the first to see Fruitadens today at Dinosaur Journey.
In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, Fruitadens is the latest sensation in the Grand Valley. Discovered in 1976 by George Callison, Fruitadens is the smallest plant [...]
This exhibit features a life-size, fleshed-out reconstruction of Fruitadens, one of the smallest adult dinosaurs in the world, found right here in the Grand Valley in 1976 by paleontologist (and Grand Junction resident) George Callison. Tiny adult dinosaurs are rare, and even more rare are plant-eating dinosaurs that weighed less than a house cat. Among [...]
Dinosaur fans give museum welcome boost in ‘09 visitation
Fifteen months ago, the administrators in charge of Dinosaur Journey were as desperate and distraught as a Tyrannosaurus rex roaming a land filled only with ferns and cycads.
The mechanical components of the Fruita museum’s dinosaurs that allowed them to spit, hiss and growl were breaking down. The [...]