Show I M Dinosaur Dinos ur Graveyard Is t Found in Southeast Utah Thomas H. H Maugh II Los Lo Angeles Times A team of researchers from Los Angeles has discovered a dinosaur graveyard in southeastern Utah that is yielding a wealth of fossilized animals and footprints from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods The centerpiece of the new finds is the well- well preserved skeleton of ofa a year old a necked long-necked herbivore re that researchers have named because the scientists were eaten alive by gnats while they were excavating it earlier in 2008 The team has excavated only part of the fossilized skeleton which they estimate to be about 50 feet long Its big and takes a lot of time said paleontologist Luis Chiappe director of the Dinosaur Institute and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County was found in inthe inthe inthe the remains of what was once a riverbed and is now nowa a light colored stratum on the face of an exposed cliff Nearby in the bed were the disarticulated remains of other and meat meat- eating dinosaurs including the long foot femur of a On the ridgeline of the cliff the team found a large number of footprints preserved in sandstone One set of prints from the Jurassic era which ended about m million years ago those of a were found near tracks of carnivorous and herbivorous from the early Cretaceous period which ended about 65 million years ago Most stunning to Chiappe were the toed three-toed prints of a European stegosaur named tracks have never been found in N North rt America he said Chiappe and his staff stall led by Doug Goudreau and Aisling Farrell expect to spend at least a decade decad excavating the site Their discoveries willbe willbe will willbe be the centerpiece of an exhibit at the Natural History Museum that will open in 2011 he said A renovation of the dinosaur exhibit is part of the museums museum's million 84 project to restore and seismically strengthen its original 1913 Beaux Arts- Arts inspired building |