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Show -KAIBAB- MOUNTAIN / DESERT BIKE TOVRS MOAB'S Premier Bike Shop! In Southern Utah Dinosaur Oases Captured in Navajo Sandstone Front & Full-Suspension Bike Rentals by: TREK PROFLEXK Experienced Mechanics & Professional Service Trail Information and Maps Supported Tours & Private Guides fa Call for a free tour brochure and bike reservation information: (800) 391 S$. Main, 451-1133 Moab, Utah 84532 Located next to City Market Open Daily from 8 a.m. TV AROUND THE WORLD photo by Damian Fagan Dinosaurs left tracks in this lime stone in Grand County, “How-To Books ees OE UNen reas © (lasses for Unusual Projects © New'shipment of birthstone Children /Sterling Ball Chain SPCR eow a ag NTL ae a iat By David Williams Sasa gal cs STC SACS MeO Nay “If we don’t have it just ask” CMe RTA Pa ems PRAT ae TU een aca Lo a. VW (WEST SIDE OF SANDY MALL) season 376-1755 Mon.-Fri. 10-7 Sat. 10-6 oughly 160 million years ago a vast blanket of sand covered most of Utah. Sand stretched from Wyoming to Arizona and from Colorado into California, an area totaling 256,000 square miles. Now preserved as Navajo Sandstone, this rock layer records one of the largest deserts in the history of the Earth. The standard picture of this environment, painted by geologists, is of sand stretching from horizon to horizon, and very few animals or plants existing anywhere. Although the picture of this vast desert is one of towering sand dunes, water occasionally appeared at the surface creating oases. During the rainy streams flowing off nearby mountains traveled along bedrock under the sand, percolated to the sur- bX face in low points of the dune field, and created small bodies of water. These ponds were seasonal, probably not lasting for many months. where there once was a desert oasis. Like oases in modern deserts, these Navajo paleo-oases drew animals, creating a sanctuary of life in an area mostly devoid of inhabitants. One cannot be sure exactly what happened but some clues give a hint. Tracks, fossils, and petrified wood, preserved in the rock, found a few fossils, they do have a good idea of who created the tracks. Coelphysis, a small carnivore that weighed less than 50 pounds and stood about two-and-one-half feet tall, produced two-and-one-half footprints. inch-long provide tantalizing evidence of a diverse array of life. Numerous animal tracks indicate that dinosaurs often visited these lakes. Tracks range in size from a few inches to a foot or more and include threeand four-toed, bipedal and A six-foot-tall, eight hundred-pound hunter with a double-crested skull, Dilophosaurus, stomped around in pursuit of smaller species, creating threetoed tracks. A third species, a large bipedal pre- quadrapedal dinosaurs. On one wellpreserved slab, numerous tracks criss- ed the Otozoum cross, possibly representing over a dozen different animals. Ichnologists, those who study tracks, give the impressions names, which usu- ally indicate something about the footprint creator. Thus the Navajo tracks are called Otozouwm (giant animal), Eubrontes (true thunder), and Grallator (similar to the tracks of Grallae, the heron-stork family). Although paleontologists have only cursor of brontosaurus, may have creattracks. Another track producer was a fourlegged dog-like species (Brassilichniumcoloradensis), known as either a mammal-like reptile or a reptile-like mammal. Lizards and arachnids also made use of the oases. Numerous burrows and many varieties of pollen attest to less charismatic visitors and inhabi- tants. The water also provided an area for plants to grow. No flowering plants are found; they would not appear for tens |