Dinosaur bone in sandstone (Morrison Formation, Upper Jurassic; western side of Dinosaur Ridge, Colorado, USA) 2

            Dinosaur bone in sandstone in the Jurassic of Colorado, USA.

Dinosaur Ridge is a particularly dinosaur fossil-rich section of the Dakota Hogback in north-central Colorado.  It is a north-south trending ridge of eastward-dipping Mesozoic sedimentary rocks.  The western side of Dinosaur Ridge (see above photo) has exposures of the Morrison Formation, an Upper Jurassic succession consisting of fluvial (river/floodplain) and lacustrine (lake) deposits, plus reddish-colored paleosol horizons.  Dinosaur bones and dinosaur tracks have been found here.

The fossil shown above is a cross-section through a long leg bone of a sauropod dinosaur in a fluvial sandstone matrix.  Several dinosaur bones occur at this site - part of a river channel sandstone deposit.  Paleocurrent indicators show that the river system was flowing to the southeast.

Sauropods were the largest and most massive group of dinosaurs - they had huge bodies, walked on four legs, and possessed very long tails and necks.  Fossil bones of several different sauropod dinosaur species have been recovered from Dinosaur Ridge's Morrison Formation, making positive identification of this particular bone difficult.  Known Morrison Formation sauropods in this area include (not counting junior synonyms) Atlantosaurus immanis, Apatosaurus ajax, and Camarasaurus sp. (see Mossbrucker & Bakker, 2010, pp. 10, 19, 22).

Stratigraphy: Morrison Formation, Kimmeridgian Stage, middle Upper Jurassic, ~150 to 156 Ma

Locality: "Quarry 5" (= one of Arthur Lakes' dinosaur excavation sites during the Cope-Marsh Bone Wars of the late 1800s), western side of Dinosaur Ridge, between Interstate 70 and the town of Morrison, west of Denver, north-central Colorado, USA
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Reference cited:
 
Mossbrucker, M.T. & R.T. Bakker.  2010.  A guide to the paleontology of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Morrison, Colorado: new interpretations and discoveries.  Bulletin of the Morrison Natural History Museum 1.  35 pp.

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Taken on: December 16, 2012

Tags:

bone

bones

fossils

sauropod

sauropods

dinosaur

dinosaurs

fluvial

sandstone

sandstones

Morrison

Formation

Jurassic

Ridge

Colorado

Dakota

Hogback « less

Sets appears in: • Colorado Rocks & Fossils • Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic; western USA) more » • Jurassic Rocks, Minerals, Fossils • Dinosaur Ridge (Colorado, USA) « less

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