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.
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 [...]
Mymoorapelta was the first ankylosaur discovered in the Jurassic of North America. This dinosaur was discovered in the Morrison Formation (Brushy Basin Member) at the Mygatt-Moore Quarry, located in western Colorado’s Rabbit Valley. It represented a totally new group of dinosaurs in the Morrison Formation, one that hadn’t been found in this rock unit in [...]
Above are examples of Ceratosaurus teeth that have been collected in the Grand Valley over the last few decades. Ceratosaurus was a carnivorous dinosaur that lived during the Jurassic Period, some 150 million years ago. Its bones and teeth are now preserved in the rocks known as the Morrison Formation. This theropod appears to be [...]
NBC news has a short video on the renovations at Dinosaur Journey thanks to a grant from the Lions Club. Watch it here.
From The Daily Sentinel -
“Last year around this time, the Museum of Western Colorado was staggering in its fight to get funding. But with some creativity, good timing and good fortune, it remained on its feet in the end.
The county cut funding by $75,000 for museum operations. At the same time the county increased its [...]
5K Male
<12 Elias Blunk – 64.43
13-19 James Mauch – 18.17 Overall male winner
20-29 Ben Hauschulz – 24.17
30-39 Duane Hoff Jr. – 29.17
40-49 Ray Shirley – 32.34
50-59 Dan Tonello – 26.45
5K Female
<12 Laura Prinster – 32.42
13-19 Stephanie Lenhart – 48.56
20-29 Elizabeth Lenhart – 45.12
30-39 Jayme Piegat – 26.15 Overall female winner
40-49 [...]