DISCOVERY OF DINO SKULLS IN GRAND-STAIRCASE WILL HAVE 'HUGE IMPACT'
sltrib.com
The skulls of Utah’s prehistoric lizards keep rolling out of the country’s largest national monument with the two newest ones so unusual that when unveiled this week, their discovery will have a global impact.
That was the message during last week’s lecture from paleontologist Scott Sampson, author, research curator for the Utah Museum of Natural History and host of the children’s science program “Dinosaur Train” on PBS.
Although the names of the new species of horned dinosaurs will not be announced until Wednesday at the museum in Salt Lake City, Sampson said their significance lies in helping scientists determine that horned dinosaurs living at the same time in different areas of the continent evolved differently.
“It [the discovery] will have a huge impact,” Sampson said last week at a public lecture at the Kanab visitor center of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
His findings will be published Wednesday in PLoS, an online scientific journal.
One complete skull made from pieces of several skulls will be unveiled, along with a replica of the other.
