Into the Quarry Visitor Center

After an astonishingly long delay, I'll now return to Dinosaur National Monument, which Jennie and I visited briefly in June of 2012. In today's post, we'll enter the recently rebuilt Quarry Visitor Center, the home to the monument's most famous feature, the steeply inclined bonebed chock full of dinosaur parts. It is a small facility, but rich with paleontological goodness.

First, that quarry wall. I appreciated the focus on the history of paleontology offered by the monument, and this relic of the old Carnegie Quarry offers travelers a rare chance to see dinosaur bones in situ. It's a canny choice; it's easy enough for the layperson to pick out individual bits of anatomy, but it's not a Hollywood version of a dig (i.e. the perfectly articulated, lightly buried Velociraptor from Jurassic Park's opening scenes). Here, you stand on a spot where titans were entombed, and those visitors patient enough to ponder the sight will walk away enriched.









The remodeled Quarry Visitor Center also includes a nice array of interpretive materials, fossil casts, and artwork, all of which come together to give visitors a well-rounded view of this slice of Utah's Jurassic heritage. In concert with the welcome center, this part of the park is well-designed to give the attentive visitor a deeper respect for the science of paleontology as well as its most famous subjects of study. The often back-breaking work required to interpret fossils is given its full due.

I loved watching a short silent movie dating from the twenties, Monsters of the Past, while I waited to board the shuttle to the quarry. The monitor sits amid a historical set piece which displays reconstructions of human artifacts and fossils as well as press clippings.







The materials in the QVC flesh out the story of scientists and dinosaurs on this spot, separated by a vast expanse of time.





Fossil remains and paleontology history aside, one of the most exciting aspects of the new visitor center is the new mural by the Walters and Kissinger team. It is a masterful piece of work by Bob, Tess, and their dedicated assistants. This team included the multi-talented Jenn Hall of Clever Girl and Jeff Breeden, who provides an overview of the entire 86' of the mural at his blog. It is a magnificent sight, and I can hardly do it justice with photos. It must be seen on site, slowly, as tourists and children clatter around you. These details can only serve as an appetizer.

I love the pairing of this mounted Allosaurus displayed in front of its painted counterpart. As if they are hunting partners, stalking the same spot, but separated by a hopeless expanse of time.





For those of us who love the history of dinosaur art, they provide this nod to a classic Charles Knight illustration.



But the work is hardly stuck in the past, as this well-quilled Dryosaurus, menaced by a Torvosaurus, displays.



Nor does the mural gloss over the more gruesome aspects of Jurassic life.



Their work also serves to illustrate didactic panels which flesh out the Morrison ecosystem represented at DNM.



The mural leads visitors to the Quarry Visitor Center's exit. After melting into Mesozoic reverie, imagining the smell of decay in the humid forest and the alien sounds of the saurian menagerie, you walk into the dry sunlight and the contortions of the Morrison and Cedar Mountain formations. If even a small percentage of the monument's visitors are struck by the poignance of deep time and our tenuous walk on its thin skin, the time, money, and effort spent by everyone who built this monument will have been well spent.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: The Quarry Shuttle at Dinosaur National Monument

I have a John Sibbick book of my own to share, but I've decided to hold back and give the kind readers of LITC a little break. Instead, today I'm sharing a collection of dinosaur illustrations that decorate the shuttle which operates within Dinosaur National Monument, taking visitors to the visitor center protecting its most famous landmark. In keeping with the monument's focus on the history of paleontology, they are throwbacks to the saurians of mid-century dinosaur books, possibly one we might have featured in this ongoing series.

UPDATE: Indeed they are - readers have pointed out that these are derivative of the Giant Golden Book of Dinosaurs, featuring Rudolf Zallinger's work. That's one I've wanted to find for a while but never have.

The paintings, which encircle the shuttle's two trailers, covering just about every panel large enough to accommodate artwork, are the work of Kay Thunehorst, an obscure artist with zero presence on the toobs. I've put out feelers to find when these paintings were made, and will update with what I find out.



Continuing the tradition of presenting iconic non-dinosaurian creatures alongside the bona fide members of the tribe, the shuttle includes Dimetrodon and a Pteranodon gracing the front of the shuttle.




The hadrosaurs are represented by Lambeosaurus and the taxonomic mess of Trachodon.




They're joined by their relative Iguanodon, placidly giving the thumbs up.


The thyreophorans are represented by their chosen delegates, Ankylosaurus and Stegosaurus.




Triceratops and Styracosaurus step up for the ceratopsians




The shuttle wouldn't feel right without sauropods, of course, and Thunehorst has painted Diplodocus and a traditional, swamp-bound Brachiosaurus.




The third sauropod is a return to one of my favorite tropes: Gory theropod attacks on the docile giants. Here it's the vicious Allosaurus grimly dispatching poor ol' Brontosaurus UPDATE: It's also a copy of Zallinger's take on this battle, as you can see here.


Yes, there be theropods on the shuttle, as further attested by this generic member of the clan, as well as the mandatory Tyrannosaurus and our little buddy Compsognathus.






These illustrations are not technically proficient, but they bear a primitive charm, and their weathered look adds a certain poignance to them. It was a pleasant surprise to see Thunehorst's cross-section of the dinosauria (pluss a couple oddballs) on the shuttle. Outdated illustrations like live on as reminders of how far we've come in the last few decades. Long may they decorate the shuttle to the Quarry Visitor Center. Speaking of which, my next post will bring us face to face with its famous wall of fossils. Special thanks to David Prus and Christina Wilsdon for pointing out the heritage of these pieces from the Zallinger illustrations.

Dinosaur National Monument Goes Social

Photo by BruceandLetty, via flickr.

In the old days, you might read one or two articles about a big project at a national park. Now, you can follow everything in real time. For instance, Dinosaur National Monument is currently overhauling its Quarry Visitor Center. To put a finer point on it, it's being completely replaced. Construction began last month, and the new visitor center should be complete by fall of 2011. But interested parties don't have to rely on the fickle decision-makers of the print media to learn more. These days, you can follow news about the project and the park in general at Twitter and Facebook. The park service also has a blog at the DML site.

For more in-depth information, check out DNM paleontologist Dan Chure's blog chronicling the process. He gets into the complicated business of relocating the site's fossil collection - including an utterly beautiful Allosaurus fragilis skull - and protecting the monument's crown jewel: the wall of Jurassic sandstone housing an amazing array of dinosaurs and other critters. While the wall isn't available to visitors during this painstaking process, there is no reason to keep away from the monument until its new house is built. This year, entrance fees have been waived to the park and to the temporary visitor center, so there's no reason to avoid Dinosaur National Monument, which contains a landscape that is spectacular in its own right.

1968 postcard of the quarry wall, from Baltimore Bob, via flickr.

When you look at the quarry wall, you're looking at the remains of an ecosystem from the Morrison Formation, one of the great dinosaur-bearing rock formations in the world. Apatosaurus, Barosaurus, Camarasaurus, Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, Camptosaurus, Allosaurus, and Ornitholestes are all known from sites with Morrison outcrops dating in the neighborhood of 150 million years ago. I'm going to steal Scott Sampson's comparison here. Take a denizen of the Morrison, say Stegosaurus. Then take another dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous, like Triceratops. Stegosaurus is even further removed in time from Triceratops than we are, having lived about 80 million years prior. That tacks another 25 million years onto the 65 that separate us from Triceratops. It's actually less of an anachronism to draw a human next to a Triceratops, rather than a Stegosaurus. That blows my mind every time I think about it. Coincidentally enough, the latest post at Dot Dot Dinosaur features a piece of artwork from Etsy that highlights this very fact. Check it out!

77 Years Ago in Popular Science

The upcoming Dinosaur National Monument warranted a short blurb in the September 1932 issue of Popular Science. Dig those clown shoes on the sauropod. Thx Google Books.

Yay Stimulus Package!

National Parks Traveler is reporting that Dinosaur National Monument is closer to being back on track, as artist's renderings of a new visitor center and quarry exhibit hall have been released and bidding on construction contracts will begin this autumn. In April it was announced that ARRA funds secured for the NPS will be used to rebuild the Quarry visitor center, which has been shut down because of structural concerns since 2006, or as I refer to it, "The Year The Allosaurs Cried." The buildings will be green, too, which though being an obvious necessity still seems like a relief. I look forward to the day when it isn't a relief.

Barack should claim dibs on the next new species found on the property. Stegosaurus obamae, maybe? Ceratosaurus baracki? He's got a lichen already, but you know the man ain't satisfied.