Skip to main content
Intellect

Crushed bones reveal literal dino stomping ground

  • Nearly all the dinosaur bones in a quarry near Moab, Utah are fractured
  • Analyzing the nature of each break, BYU researchers concluded that the fresh carcasses were trampled by huge plant-eating dinos
  • The bones are now housed on BYU's campus at the museum immediately west of the football stadium

Imagine the gruesome sound of bones snapping as a thirsty, 30-ton dinosaur tramples a heap of fresh carcasses on his way to a rapidly shrinking lake.
That’s the scene revealed by a painstaking analysis of thousands of bones unearthed near Moab, Utah by geologists from Brigham Young University.

So far the researchers have identified 67 individual dinosaurs representing 8 species – and they have only scratched the surface of this diverse quarry. Mysteriously, nearly all of the 4,200 bones recovered so far are fractured, as reported in the scientific journal Palaeo.

“Although enough bones were recovered to assemble several complete dinosaurs, the vast majority of bones are broken to bits and pieces, just pulverized,” said BYU professor Brooks Britt, lead author on the study.

The researchers reconstructed how the bones got there and why they are in such bad shape.

The quarry, located immediately west of Arches National Park, contains dinosaurs of all sizes and ages, indicating a massive die-off event. The location of this dense cluster of bones – near the shore of an ancient lake bed – suggests a drought was the cause.

Yet the biggest puzzle was the cause of all the fractures. A closer look revealed that most of the breaks were angled “greenstick” fractures that occur in fresh bones.

The bones broke before they became brittle.

“Some of these bones were almost 5 feet long, and they are green, and you really have to work hard to shatter bone that’s still green,” Britt said. “That means the big boys were stepping on those things. Those would have been audible, big snaps.”

The heavy-footed culprits? Huge, plant-eating sauropods and iguanodontids that stomped more than 100 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous Period. Some of the sauropods from this quarry are cousins to the brachiosaurus.

The bones are now housed in BYU’s Earth Science Museum, which will re-emerge as the Museum of Paleontology during Homecoming weekend.

Museum curator Rod Scheetz, a co-author on the study, says the grand re-opening will include the debut of a 9-foot-long triceratops skull from Montana.

About the museum

Regular exhibits at the museum have featured dinosaur skeletons of a camptosaurus and an allosaurus, a mural of the Utah-Colorado region in the Jurassic Period and a preparation lab window showing museum personnel preparing fossils.

The museum — which is popular with families and school groups — is located at 1683 N. Canyon Road in Provo. The museum is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and admission is free.

Related Articles

data-content-type="article"

BYU educators, Native American tribal leaders team up to enrich Utah elementary arts programs

September 14, 2023
The BYU ARTS Partnership, part of the David O. McKay School of Education, began 16 years ago to increase the quality and quantity of arts education through dance, drama, music and visual art in elementary schools. The NACI is one of its four initiatives.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

Female judges, especially women of color, cited far less frequently than male judges

September 12, 2023
Researchers from UNC Charlotte, University of Louisville, University of Georgia and Brigham Young University analyzed how the race and gender of federal judges might be impacting judicial processes. Specifically, they wanted to see which types of judges get the most attention from their peers when they have complete discretion to reference another judge’s work.

overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

BYU is one of the top universities in the nation, according to new Wall Street Journal rankings

September 06, 2023
BYU comes in at No. 20 overall in the newly released 2024 Best Colleges in America rankings from The Wall Street Journal and College Pulse, joining the likes of Princeton, MIT, Yale, Stanford and Harvard in the top 25.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText=