fox13now.com
PROVO, Utah — The discovery of a new dinosaur unearthed in Utah was published this week, and BYU researchers have named the 32-foot herbivore Moabosaurus Utahensis in honor of the city of Moab.
sciencemag.org
How did the dinosaur become the dinosaur? Somewhere along the line, the ancestor of dinosaurs diverged from the ancestor of crocodiles, a momentous split in the evolution of vertebrates that ultimately set the stage for the age of dinos. But the details of that split remain mysterious, thanks to a dearth of fossils of early dinosaur relatives. Enter the newly identified 247-million- to 242-million-year-old Teleocrater rhadinus, a close relative of dinosaurs that also happened to walk on all fours and share some key features with the ancestors of crocodiles. These shared features, the authors say, suggest that it’s time to rethink what we thought we knew about dinosaurs’ earliest ancestors.
sltrib.com
This short and sweet hike leads to a floor of sandstone that contains a display of dinosaur tracks. The tracks probably were left by the famous carnivore dilophosaurus and smaller megapnosaurus, paleontologists believe. In an interpretive sign at the tracks, officials with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management report that the consistent direction of the tracks suggests that the spot was part of a dino thoroughfare, perhaps alongside water, and petrified wood nearby indicates the area may have been wooded.
smithsonianmag.com
Everybody knows about dinosaurs. How could we not? They’re everywhere, from museum halls and Hollywood blockbusters to city sidewalks where their modern, feathery representatives pick up crumbs with their beaks. But even while we adore the terrifying Tyrannosaurus and breathtaking Brachiosaurus, we still know next to nothing about the earliest dinosaurs that arose over 235 million years ago—and who exactly they evolved from.
dontmesswithdinosaurs.com
This video is part 1 in a 2 part series about reconstructing the dinosaurs that left their tracks at Copper Ridge, near Moab Utah.
stgeorgeutah.com
FEATURE — Representing a recent discovery of a remarkable past, the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm offers visitors a glimpse at an early Jurassic lakeside habitat via a site uniquely preserved from volcanic destruction. Displayed at this site are not only rare trackways of carnivorous dinosaurs but swim tracks and the fossil fish that dinosaurs consumed. Also displayed are plant fossils which rimmed the shoreline approximately 200 million years ago.
smithsonianmag.com
When a six mile-wide asteroid struck the Earth 66 million years ago, it was one of the worst days in the history of the planet. About 75 percent of the known species were rapidly driven to extinction, including the non-avian dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus, the flying pterosaurs, the coil-shelled squid cousins called ammonites, and many more.
rferl.org
With the sale of elephant tusks under close scrutiny, “ethical ivory” from the extinct woolly mammoth is now feeding an insatiable market in China.
deseretnews.com
Dinosaur National Monument is nearing the end of its 100th year. As a tribute to a monument that was millions of years in the making, we’ve compiled a list of some favorite photos from old Deseret News newspapers.
smithsonianmag.com
No one could have seen the catastrophe coming. Dinosaurs stalked each other and munched on lush greens as they had for over 170 million years.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE UTAH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
The Utah Geological Survey (UGS) is a division of the Utah Department of Natural Resources. Several specialized programs comprise the UGS: Data Management, Energy & Minerals, Geologic Hazards, Geologic Information & Outreach, Geologic Mapping, Groundwater & Wetlands, and Paleontology.