Event Registration
2023 Field Trip: Exploring Local Giants
09/23/2023 09:00 AM - 09/24/2023 03:00 PM MT
Admission
- $340.00
Summary
Join local researchers Matthew Mossbrucker and Erin LaCount to explore the local giants of Morrison and Golden! Giants is relative – some of the newer discoveries are actually quite small. This field trip will be across two days with no hotel stay needed! We’ll start at 9am each morning and head out to local fossil areas within the Morrison/Golden Areas National Natural Landmark returning around 3pm each afternoon.
Day one will focus on the Morrison Formation at the Morrison Natural History Museum and the west side of Dinosaur Ridge, the 150 million-year-old Late Jurassic layers of Colorado’s original Jurassic Park. We’ll see specimens from the original Lakes quarries such as YPM 1850, the bones that named Stegosaurus, and YPM 4676, some of the first Apatosaurus bones referenced in Lakes’ first letters from 1876. Also included will be new finds made by the Morrison Natural History Museum through their exploration of Quarry 5 boulders from Dinosaur Ridge road construction. Finds include two new turtles, a lungfish, six different dinosaur track types, and newly described Ceratosaurus and crocodilian! We’ll compare the site of the discovery
Day two will focus on the 100 million-year-old Late Cretaceous of Dinosaur Ridge’s east side and then venture into Golden and the latest part of the Cretaceous at Triceratops Trail and the School of Mines Geological Trail. We’ll do a deep dive into the Laramie Formation and the evidence of horned dinosaurs, duck-billed dinosaurs, tyrannosaurs, and more!
Join us on this two-day exploration and experience more in your backyard than you’ve ever seen.
Event Registration is closed.
Day one will focus on the Morrison Formation at the Morrison Natural History Museum and the west side of Dinosaur Ridge, the 150 million-year-old Late Jurassic layers of Colorado’s original Jurassic Park. We’ll see specimens from the original Lakes quarries such as YPM 1850, the bones that named Stegosaurus, and YPM 4676, some of the first Apatosaurus bones referenced in Lakes’ first letters from 1876. Also included will be new finds made by the Morrison Natural History Museum through their exploration of Quarry 5 boulders from Dinosaur Ridge road construction. Finds include two new turtles, a lungfish, six different dinosaur track types, and newly described Ceratosaurus and crocodilian! We’ll compare the site of the discovery
Day two will focus on the 100 million-year-old Late Cretaceous of Dinosaur Ridge’s east side and then venture into Golden and the latest part of the Cretaceous at Triceratops Trail and the School of Mines Geological Trail. We’ll do a deep dive into the Laramie Formation and the evidence of horned dinosaurs, duck-billed dinosaurs, tyrannosaurs, and more!
Join us on this two-day exploration and experience more in your backyard than you’ve ever seen.