Where to find dinosaurs

Frequently asked questions

Can I collect dinosaur fossils on public land?

In the United States, the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act (PRPA) of 2009 prohibits collecting vertebrate fossils, including dinosaur bones and teeth, on federal land (BLM, National Forests, and National Parks) without a scientific permit. Since most of the well-known dinosaur quarry country in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and Utah is federal land, self-guided collection is not legal there. Legal options include licensed commercial dig programs (the Wyoming Dinosaur Center near Thermopolis runs public dig programs in the Jurassic Morrison Formation), state-managed land with appropriate state permits, or private land with owner permission where ownership of fossils is typically retained by the landowner. In the UK, most dinosaur material comes from the Isle of Wight cliffs, where surface collecting from foreshore scree is permitted, though exportation of significant specimens requires a licence under the Export of Objects of Cultural Interest Act.

Where can I see dinosaur fossils in the field?

Several sites allow public viewing of dinosaur material without requiring excavation access. Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas preserves Early Cretaceous sauropod and theropod trackways directly in the Paluxy River limestone. The tracks are among the most extensive in the world and visible at normal water levels. Dinosaur National Monument on the Utah-Colorado border has a glass-walled Quarry Exhibit Hall built over a sandstone wall containing over 1,500 embedded Jurassic dinosaur bones, viewable up close. Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry in Emery County, Utah is a free BLM site where a visitor walkway looks directly into a Jurassic Allosaurus-dominated bone bed. Dinosaur Ridge in Morrison, Colorado is a free roadside interpretive trail past Jurassic Morrison Formation bone exposures and Cretaceous ornithopod trackways.

What is the most common dinosaur fossil found?

Isolated teeth are the most frequently recovered dinosaur fossil, because many dinosaurs continuously replaced their teeth throughout life (a process called polyphyodonty). At commercial Morrison Formation quarries in Wyoming and Colorado, Allosaurus teeth are relatively common finds. Complete or nearly-complete dinosaur skeletons are extremely rare globally. Most museum mounts combine material from multiple individuals or include reconstructed elements. The famous T. rex specimen known as Stan (BHI 3033), one of the most complete T. rex skeletons ever found, required over 30,000 man-hours of preparation before it could be exhibited. At trackway sites such as Dinosaur Valley, theropod footprints are abundant because tracks fossilize wherever an animal walked across suitable sediment, making them far more common than skeletal material.