A Wall of 1,500 Dinosaur Bones Near Jensen

The Quarry Exhibit Hall at Dinosaur National Monument lets visitors view a wall of about 1,500 dinosaur bones. They are roughly 150 million years old, from the Late Jurassic, and they are still in the rock where they were found.

Outside the glass windows you can see part of a geological anticline, an uplift with many rock layers exposed at an angle. One of those layers, the Morrison Formation, is the same one exposed inside the hall.

Eight species of dinosaur remain in the Quarry Wall. Stegosaurus and Allosaurus are among them, along with Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus and Diplodocus. Some of the skeletons are articulated, meaning connected in the right order, but most are loose and unconnected. A few bear signs of scavenging. The park's own photos show a Camarasaurus skull and several neck vertebrae still embedded in the cliff face.

The wall is not the only exhibit. Other displays cover fossils of small mammals, clams, amphibians, reptiles and plants from the Morrison environment, so the dinosaurs come with a record of what was living around them. Rangers are on hand to answer questions and help kids complete their Junior Ranger booklets, and in summer they occasionally give talks on the quarry or on dinosaurs.

To get there, take Utah Highway 149 north from U.S. Highway 40 in Jensen. Dinosaur National Monument sits on the Colorado and Utah border, but the fossils are only on the Utah side, and a navigation app told to find the monument may send you to headquarters near Dinosaur, Colorado, or to a remote spot inside the 210,000 acres. The Exhibit Hall is a separate building from the Quarry Visitor Center, a 3-minute drive away. In summer the park asks visitors to take the free shuttle because the parking lot has limited space. When conditions allow, the Fossil Discovery Trail runs 1.2 miles one way between the two.

Once inside, find the spots where touching is allowed. There are several, and the fossils under your hand are real ones, about 150 million years old.