Intermountain West Fossil Sites

5 Locations | Curated by Jacob French, Northern Arizona University

This tour explores the significance and history of fossil sites in the Intermountain West. It includes sites such as Fossil Cabin, Petrified Forest National Park, Dinosaur National Monument, Dinosaur Ridge, and Fossil Butte National Monument.

In 1915, Thomas Boylan began collecting dinosaur bones from Como Bluff, Wyoming. He wanted to complete a dinosaur skeleton to attract motorists to his gas station along the Lincoln Highway, but when he couldn’t find enough bones he gave up and used them to build the Fossil Cabin instead.
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Petrified Forest National Park is rich in fossilized wood from the Triassic Period, which took place 200 to 250 million years ago. Although the park is mainly known for the petrified wood, it presently hosts a diverse ecosystem and also has archeological significance to human history.
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Dinosaur National Monument is a fossil bone quarry where visitors can see fossilized remains still fixed in the rocks. Petroglyphs show earlier human culture, and scenic views and river canyons provide opportunity for sightseeing and recreation.
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Paleontologists began excavating at Dinosaur Ridge in 1877 and it became well-known for its dinosaur fossils and hundreds of footprints. Nearly a century later, the National Park Service turned it into a National Natural Landmark, and today it is open to the public and offers a variety of geological, ecological, and paleontological information to visitors.
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Congress created Fossil Butte National Monument on October 23, 1972 to protect exceptionally rare paleontological sites and other geographical phenomena in southwestern Wyoming near Kemmerer. Fossil Butte is the site of a 50-million-year-old lakebed from the Eocene Epoch within the Green River Formation.
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