New dinosaur from Utah's Red Rocks lived 185 million years ago

I found this article doing my morning news surfing and thought I would share with the members who are interested in paleontology. It seems that this is a significant find for North America and another piece of the puzzle from our distant past.

www.domain-b.com

Utah's red rocks - world-famous attractions at numerous national parks, monuments and state parks - have yielded a rare skeleton of a new species of plant-eating dinosaur that lived 185 million years ago and may have been buried alive by a collapsing sand dune. The discovery confirms the widespread success of sauropodomorph dinosaurs during the Early Jurassic Period.

Until now, Utah's red rocks were known only for a few scattered bones and dinosaur footprints. However, discovery of a remarkably preserved partial skeleton is being published in the March 24 edition of PLoS ONE, the online open-access journal produced by the Public Library of Science.

The study was conducted by Joseph Sertich, a former University of Utah master's student and current Stony Brook University Ph.D. student, and Mark Loewen, a paleontologist at the Utah Museum of Natural History and instructor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Utah.

reply to post by JacKatMtn


Hi,

Many thanks for posting this. This is especially interesting as it appears to provide yet another link in the chain.

I have stopped at Bluff a couple of times whilst on holidays and hope to be there again next year. From memory, Blanding just to the north has a small but interesting dinosaur musem.

Peace!