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Big Dinosaur Heads for Salt Lake

Posted on: Saturday, 25 September 2004, 06:00 CDT

Dinosaurs will fly Wednesday when a helicopter on loan from Zion National Park ferries plaster-encased fossils off southern Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

The bones of the giant reptile -- identified as a hadrosaur, or duckbill -- will be loaded onto a flatbed truck waiting along state Route 12 near Henrieville and hauled to Salt Lake City for further study at the Utah Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah.

University paleontologists found the hadrosaur in 2001 on a ridge in what is known as the Blues area, deep inside the southern Utah monument. They nicknamed the site "Jodi's Hadrosaur" in honor of volunteer Jodi Vincent, who discovered the bones.

Wednesday's event comes amid a series of dinosaur-related activities associated with the museum and the Bureau of Land Management.

Today, the BLM will conduct a public tour into the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument site where another hadrosaur was discovered last September. Part of that specimen's skull is exposed, and paleontologists will demonstrate how they work to uncover such specimens.

Reservations for today's event, set for a spot near Grosvenor Arch southeast of Kodachrome Basin State Park, are filled, but a second public demonstration at the same site is scheduled for Oct. 14.

Meanwhile, Mike Getty, the museum's vertebrate paleontology collections manager, said the fossilized remains being flown out Wednesday could represent a new hadrosaur species.

Volunteers and researchers managed to unearth about two-thirds of that skeleton, including most of the tail. They also found parts of the torso, hip, skull and arm bones.

"We have no legs," Getty said. "Maybe something tore them off and ate them."

The hadrosaur legs could have served as a snack for a smaller cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex, another beast roaming the area about 70 million years ago, he said.

Any further forensic work will have to wait until the skeleton is trucked to the U. Researchers there will look for bite marks or other clues that could explain the lack of legs.

But most of the laboratory work, which could take up to two years, will focus on preparing the skeleton and documenting the various parts found, Getty said. After extensive research, if the hadrosaur turns out to be a new species, museum researchers will come up with a new name.

"It's one of the most complete ones we've found in the monument," Getty said of the skeleton.

Most of the parts to be shipped to Salt Lake City next week remain in the field covered in plaster. The hadrosaur was split into a dozen pieces, each weighing anywhere from several hundred pounds to more than half a ton.

glavine@sltrib.com

mhavnes@sltrib.com

A blast from the past

* On Oct. 9 in Salt Lake City, during the Utah Museum of Natural History's "What's in the Basement" event, paleontologists will crack open one of the plaster pieces to show bones to the public. The pieces will then head for a lab for preparation.

* The Bureau of Land Management has invited the public to learn about how paleontologists in the field go about removing fossils from where they have been buried for millions of years. Tours will be conducted today and again on Oct. 14. Groups will leave from Grosvenor Arch, southeast of Kodachrome Basin State Park, beginning at 9 a.m. both days.

Today's tours are all booked, but reservations for the Oct. 14 tours will be taken, beginning Oct. 1 at 9 a.m. by calling 435-644- 4680.

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