Millions of years ago, dinosaurs lived in what is now Utah. The Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, discovered in Emery County, Utah, in the early 1900s, is the densest known concentration of Jurassic dinosaur fossils. Reproductions of its specimen skeletons are on exhibit around the world. Museums in Utah preserve, study and display thousands of dinosaur remnants.
Northern Utah hosts one of the world's largest permanent exhibitions of dinosaur life at the Museum of Ancient Life. With more than 120 skeletons and thousands of fossils, the museum displays prehistory by era. Guests are encouraged to touch fossils and handle real dinosaur eggs and bones. Exhibit halls immerse visitors in the world of dinosaurs with murals, soundtracks, plants, gurgling streams and more than 60 interactive, hands-on displays. Museum visitors can observe and participate at a working paleontology lab. The museum movie theater has a six-story 70-mm screen and 3-D movies.
Once a month the Museum of Ancient Life hosts Dinosnorzzz, a slumber party for children. This event includes a behind-the-scenes tour, a movie at the XanGo Mammoth 3-D screen, snacks, activities, exhibits, classes and breakfast. Adults are also welcome.
Museum of Ancient Life
2929 Thanksgiving Way
Lehi, UT 84043
801-766-5030
The paleontology collection at the Utah Museum of Natural History in northern Utah is dominated by dinosaurs from the late Jurassic, including fossils of allosaurs, ceratosaurs, stegosaurs and camarasaurs. Paleontologists from UMNH have excavated specimens from several areas in Utah. Recent additions to its collections include Utah's first Tyrannosaurus rex, several ceratopsian dinosaurs, and hadrosaur remains.
The UMNH collections in biology, earth sciences and anthropology rank among the largest and most comprehensive for the western United States. The focus of the museum is on the areas of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau. Collections, however, include items from around the world.
Utah Museum of Natural History
University of Utah
1390 E. Presidents Circle
Salt Lake City, UT 84112
801-581-6927
umnh.utah.edu
Also in northern Utah, the Brigham Young University Museum of Paleontology houses one of the top five Jurassic Period collections in the world. The original purpose of the museum, built in 1976, was to house, prepare and display the dinosaur fossils and rocks collected by Dr. James A. Jensen and his crews in Utah, Colorado, Montana and Wyoming.
Displays include fossils from two of the largest dinosaurs in the world and one of the smallest, a 150-million-year-old dinosaur egg displayed with an X-ray of the embryo within, two fully mounted dinosaur skeletons, skulls of Tyrannosaurus rex and triceratops, and dinosaur skin fossils. Visitors see dinosaur fossils prepared in a working paleontology lab, touch real fossils and learn about paleontology.
Brigham Young University Museum of Paleontology
1683 N. Canyon Road
Provo, UT 84602
801-422-3680
cpms.byu.edu
The Utahraptor find by personnel from the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum put it on the cutting edge of scientific discovery. Today CEU operates a number of dinosaur fossil quarries. The museum has many complete skeletons from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, dinosaur tracks recovered from local coal mines, dinosaur eggs and other fossils.
Visitors can see the Huntington mammoth, view many interpretive exhibits, explore the children's discovery area and a living fossil landscape that includes an alligator, a soft-shelled turtle and two monitor lizards. There is also a gift shop.
College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum
155 E. Main St.
Price, UT 84501
435-613-5060
museum.ceu.edu
The Geology Hall at the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum in eastern Utah displays vertebrate and invertebrate fossils. Paintings and murals by geologist and innovative artist Ernest Untermann depict prehistoric scenes, and sculptor Elbert Porter created the display of 17 life-sized creatures, mostly from the Mesozoic, that dominate the Dinosaur Garden. Foliage similar to that of the Mesozoic and a small lake and waterfall on native rock enhance the illusion.
Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum
496 E. Main St.
Vernal, UT 84078
435-789-3799
The Dinosaur Museum, open mid-April to mid-October, presents the history of dinosaurs through footprints, skeletons, fossilized skin, rare fossils from around the world, eggs, state-of-the-art graphics and sculptures. Visitors can learn about dinosaur skin research and the locations where dinosaurs hatched and grew. They can walk below the jaws of a tyrannosaur and at eye-level with sculptures of a baby protoceratops and maiasaura.
The museum's "Cine-Saurus" has memorabilia from silent classics and modern, high-tech dinosaur sagas.
The Dinosaur Museum
754 S. 200 West
Blanding, Utah 84511
435-678-3454
dinosaur-museum.org
