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33-746: Quarry Visitor Center , in Dinosaur National Monument in Uintah County , Utah , United States was built as part of the National Park Service 's (NPS) Mission 66 program of modern architectural design in the US national parks . This visitor center exemplifies the philosophy of locating visitor facilities immediately at the resource being interpreted. The visitor center was closed from 2006 to 2011 due to structural damage from unstable soils. The rotunda structure

66-449: A compromise that eliminated Echo Park Dam and authorized the rest of the project. The Colorado River Storage Project Act became law on April 11, 1956. It stated, "that no dam or reservoir constructed under the authorization of the Act shall be within any National Park or Monument." Places on the list of National Register of Historic Places include: The Dinosaur National Monument sits on

99-588: A pattern of compressive uplifts and basins, with most of the deformation confined to block edges. Twelve kilometers of structural relief between basins and adjacent uplifts is not uncommon. The basins contain several thousand meters of Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary rocks that predate the Laramide orogeny. As much as 5,000 meters (16,000 ft) of Cretaceous and Cenozoic sediments filled these orogenically-defined basins. Deformed Paleocene and Eocene deposits record continuing orogenic activity. During

132-551: A series of pulses, with quiescent phases intervening. The major feature that was created by this orogeny was deep-seated, thick-skinned deformation , with evidence of this orogeny found from Canada to northern Mexico , with the easternmost extent of the mountain-building represented by the Black Hills of South Dakota . The phenomenon is named for the Laramie Mountains of eastern Wyoming . The Laramide orogeny

165-532: A ten-dam, billion dollar Colorado River Storage Project began to arouse opposition in the early 1950s when it was announced that one of the proposed dams would be at Echo Park , in the middle of Dinosaur National Monument. The controversy assumed major proportions, dominating conservation politics for years. David Brower , executive director of the Sierra Club , and Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society led an unprecedented nationwide campaign to preserve

198-564: A unique resource for both science and recreation. The park contains over 800 paleontological sites and has fossils of dinosaurs including Allosaurus , Deinonychus , Abydosaurus , and various sauropods . The Abydosaurus consists of a nearly complete skull, the lower jaw, and first four neck vertebrae. The specimen was found at the base of the Mussentuchit Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation and

231-519: A vast area of desert land in Northwestern Colorado and Northeastern Utah. Typical of high deserts, summer temperatures can be exceedingly hot, while winter temperatures can be very cold. Snowfall is common, but the snow melts rapidly in the arid and sunny climates of these states. Rainfall is very low, and the evaporation rate classifies the area as desert, even though the rainfall exceeds 10 inches. The "Wall of Bones" located within

264-607: Is sometimes confused with the Sevier orogeny , which partially overlapped in time and space. The orogeny is commonly attributed to events off the west coast of North America, where the Kula and Farallon Plates were sliding under the North American Plate . Most hypotheses propose that oceanic crust was undergoing flat-slab subduction , that is, subduction at a shallow angle. As a consequence, no magmatism occurred in

297-602: Is the holotype for the description. Paleontologist Earl Douglass of the Carnegie Museum discovered eight vertebra of an Apatosaurus on August 17, 1909, which became the first dinosaur skeleton discovered and excavated at the new Carnegie Quarry. The area around the quarry was declared a national monument on October 4, 1915. The International Dark-Sky Association designated Dinosaur National Monument an International Dark Sky Park in April 2019. The rock layer enclosing

330-523: The Andes , for example), but far to the east, along the Colorado Mineral Belt . Geologists call such a lack of volcanic activity near a subduction zone a magmatic gap . This particular gap may have occurred because the subducted slab was in contact with relatively cool continental lithosphere, not hotter asthenosphere . One result of shallow angle of subduction and the drag that it caused

363-461: The Bighorn , Powder River , and Wind River being the largest. Topographically, the basin floors resemble the surface of the western Great Plains, except for vistas of surrounding mountains. At most boundaries, Paleozoic through Paleogene units dip steeply into the basins off uplifted blocks cored by Precambrian rocks. The eroded steeply dipping units form hogbacks and flatirons . Many of

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396-486: The Echo Park Dam , as a means of guarding against renewed reservoir proposals. The visitor center's concept was first expressed in 1916 when George Otis Smith , the director of the U.S. Geological Survey , suggested that the specimens be displayed in the northern canyon wall. Local citizens, including the dinosaur quarry's discoverer Earl Douglass, proposed a skylit shelter for the display. A temporary shelter for

429-637: The Depression under the Transient Relief Service and later under the Works Progress Administration. This work included constructing a road to the quarry, removal of overburden covering the bone-bearing strata, and building of a small, temporary museum. World War II interrupted work, but this was resumed in 1951 with the building of a small metal building over the east portion of the quarry to test whether bone

462-610: The Dinosaur Quarry building in the park consists of a steeply tilted (67° from horizontal) rock layer which contains thousands of dinosaur fossils . The preserved section is only a portion of what was originally present when Douglass made his discovery as seen on the map above. When work ceased in 1922, a portion of the quarry was left for future development. This work began as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's Civil Works Administration, which provided employment during

495-755: The Fremont culture along the Fremont River in south-central Utah and have since traced it through much of the Green and Colorado River drainages. The Fremont did not build large permanent dwellings; instead, they lived in small bands within natural shelters, such as rock overhangs or shallow caves, or small villages. They consumed plant foods, such as pine nuts , berries, and cactus fruits, as well as wild game, including mule deer , bighorn sheep , smaller mammals, and birds. They also grew corn, beans, and squash, sometimes using irrigation techniques. The fate of

528-689: The Fremont culture is unclear. Recent theories suggest that the Fremont's lifestyle may have changed due to drought or other climate factors, dwindling natural resources, or the influence of other neighboring cultures. They left evidence of their presence in the form of petroglyphs and pictographs of human and animal figures, and abstract designs. Human figures typically have trapezoidal bodies and elaborate decorations that suggest headdresses , earrings, necklaces, or shields. The animal figures include bighorn sheep, birds, snakes, and lizards. Purely abstract or geometric designs, such as circles, spirals, and various combinations of lines, are common. Many designs in

561-601: The Laramide orogeny, basin floors and mountain summits were much closer to sea level than today. After the seas retreated from the Rocky Mountain region, floodplains , swamps , and vast lakes developed in the basins. Drainage systems imposed at that time persist today. Since the Oligocene , episodic epeirogenic uplift gradually raised the entire region, including the Great Plains, to present elevations. Most of

594-538: The bedrock below the unstable clay. The Dinosaur Quarry was reopened in Fall 2011. Laramide orogeny The Laramide orogeny was a time period of mountain building in western North America , which started in the Late Cretaceous , 80 to 70 million years ago, and ended 55 to 35 million years ago. The exact duration and ages of beginning and end of the orogeny are in dispute. The Laramide orogeny occurred in

627-716: The bones and their excavators was finally built in 1936. A preliminary design in January 1937 was produced by a group including the Park Service Western Office of Design and Construction, the American Museum of Natural History and the directorate of the Park Service that closely resembled the eventual design by Anshen and Allen. A number of succeeding designs followed, becoming more elaborate and departing from this concept. No funding emerged for

660-610: The boundaries are thrust or reverse faults . Although other boundaries appear to be monoclinal flexures , faulting is suspected at depth. Most bounding faults show evidence of at least two episodes of Laramide ( Late Cretaceous and Eocene ) movement, suggesting both thrust and strike-slip types of displacement. According to paleontologist Thomas M. Lehman, the Laramide orogeny triggered "the most dramatic event that affected Late Cretaceous dinosaur communities in North America prior to their extinction." This turnover event saw

693-405: The central west of the continent, and the underlying oceanic lithosphere actually caused drag on the root of the overlying continental lithosphere. One cause for shallow subduction may have been an increased rate of plate convergence. Another proposed cause was subduction of thickened oceanic crust. Magmatism associated with subduction occurred not near the plate edges (as in the volcanic arc of

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726-475: The design, but a new wood and corrugated sheet metal shelter was built in 1951, reminiscent of the 1916 proposal. The Quarry Visitor Center was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2001. Dinosaur National Monument Originally preserved in 1915 to protect its famous Dinosaur Quarry, the monument was greatly expanded in 1938 to include its wealth of natural history. The park's wild landscapes, topography, geology, paleontology, and history make it

759-501: The dinosaur beds as Dinosaur National Monument in 1915. The monument boundaries were expanded in 1938 from the original 80 acres (0.13 sq mi; 0.32 km ) surrounding the dinosaur quarry in Utah, to 210,844 acres (329 sq mi; 853 km ) in Utah and Colorado, encompassing the river canyons of the Green and Yampa . The plans made by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on

792-577: The fossils is a sandstone and conglomerate bed of alluvial or river bed origin known as the Morrison Formation from the Jurassic Period some 150 million years old. The dinosaurs and other ancient animals were carried by the river system which eventually entombed their remains in Utah. The pile of sediments were later buried and lithified into solid rock. The layers of rock were later uplifted and tilted to their present angle by

825-469: The free-flowing rivers and scenic canyons of the Green and Yampa Rivers. They argued that if a national monument was not safe from development, how could any wildland be kept intact? On the other side of the argument were powerful members of Congress from western states, who were committed to the project in order to secure water rights, obtain cheap hydroelectric power and develop reservoirs as tourist destinations. After much debate, Congress settled on

858-478: The hard rock to reveal the excavated fossil bones in-situ. In July 2006, the Quarry Visitor Center was closed due to structural problems that since 1958 had plagued the building because it was built on unstable clay. The decision was made to build a new facility elsewhere in the monument to house the visitor center and administrative functions, making it easier to resolve the structural problems of

891-555: The modern topography is the result of Pliocene and Pleistocene events, including additional uplift, glaciation of the high country, and denudation and dissection of older Cenozoic surfaces in the basin by fluvial processes. In the United States, these distinctive intermontane basins occur principally in the central Rocky Mountains from Colorado and Utah ( Uinta Basin ) to Montana and are best developed in Wyoming , with

924-677: The monument are accessible for close viewing, along four trails in Utah, one of which is near the visitor center, and a fifth trail in Colorado. The dinosaur fossil beds ( bone beds ) were discovered in 1909 by Earl Douglass , a paleontologist working and collecting for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History . He and his crews excavated thousands of fossils and shipped them back to the museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for study and display. President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed

957-532: The mountain building forces that formed the Uinta Mountains during the Laramide orogeny . The relentless forces of erosion exposed the layers at the surface to be found by paleontologists. The Fremont people lived in the area of what is now Dinosaur National Monument before the 14th century, with archaeological evidence dating from c. 200 to c. 1300. Archaeologists first studied and named

990-551: The quarry building while still retaining a portion of the historic Mission 66 era exhibit hall. It was announced in April 2009 that Dinosaur National Monument would receive $ 13.1 million to refurbish and reopen the gallery as part of the Obama administration's $ 750 billion stimulus plan. The Park Service successfully rebuilt the Quarry Exhibit Hall, supporting its weight on 70-foot steel micropile columns that extend to

1023-638: Was a broad belt of mountains, some of which were the progenitors of the Rocky Mountains . Part of the proto-Rocky Mountains would be later modified by extension to become the Basin and Range Province . The Laramide orogeny produced intermontane structural basins and adjacent mountain blocks by means of deformation. This style of deformation is typical of continental plates adjacent to convergent margins of long duration that have not sustained continent/continent collisions. This tectonic setting produces

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1056-583: Was abundant enough to warrant a larger, more permanent building. This more permanent building was erected in the mid-1950s as part of the National Park Service Mission 66 plan. The architectural design was high controversial for its ultra-modern use of glass, steel and concrete ramp that spiraled around a cylindrical office tower. The building opened at the dedication ceremony on June 1, 1958. The design had two levels and abundant natural light so that visitors could watch technicians remove

1089-462: Was demolished and replaced with a new structure of different design, while the quarry section was being stabilized and repaired. The NPS now refers to the new visitor center (built in 2011 about 1,800 feet [550 m] to the southwest) as the "Quarry Visitor Center" and the historical building as the " Quarry Exhibit Hall ". The visitor center was built in part to attract visitors to the little-visited monument, which had been threatened with flooding by

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