Garden Park, Colorado
Encyclopedia
Garden Park, in southcentral Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, is known for its Jurassic
Jurassic
The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Mya to  Mya, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the age of reptiles. The start of the period is marked by...

 dinosaurs and the role the specimens played in the infamous bone wars
Bone Wars
The Bone Wars, also known as the "Great Dinosaur Rush", refers to a period of intense fossil speculation and discovery during the Gilded Age of American history, marked by a heated rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh...

 of the late 19th century. Located 10 km (6.2 mi) north of Cañon City, Colorado
Cañon City, Colorado
The City of Cañon City is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Fremont County, State of Colorado. The United States Census Bureau estimated that the city population was 16,000 in 2005. Cañon City is noted for being the location of nine state and four ...

, the name originates from the area providing vegetables to the miners at nearby Cripple Creek
Cripple Creek, Colorado
The City of Cripple Creek is a Statutory City that is the county seat of Teller County, Colorado, United States. Cripple Creek is a former gold mining camp located southwest of Colorado Springs near the base of Pikes Peak. The Cripple Creek Historic District, which received National Historic...

 in the 19th century. Garden Park proper is a triangular valley surrounded by cliffs on the southeast and southwest and by mountains to the north; however, the name is also refers to the dinosaur sites on top and along the cliffs. The dinosaur sites now form the Garden Park Paleontological Resource Area, which is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management
Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately , or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. The BLM also manages of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private...

.

Geology

Garden Park was formed by erosion of sedimentary rocks that have been distorted by uplift of the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

. The region is bisected by Four Mile Creek (also called Oil Creek), which has carved a canyon through the Mesozoic and Paleozoic sedimentary rocks. One of these Mesozoic strata is the Morrison Formation
Morrison Formation
The Morrison Formation is a distinctive sequence of Late Jurassic sedimentary rock that is found in the western United States, which has been the most fertile source of dinosaur fossils in North America. It is composed of mudstone, sandstone, siltstone and limestone and is light grey, greenish...

, which is exposed within the canyon. However because the formation contains high amounts of swelling clays, large faulted blocks or slump-blocks of the formation are slowly moving towards the creek. The result is to make it difficult to correlate the various dinosaur quarries because exposures are limited and not continuous.

The formation in Garden Park can be divided informally into a lower and upper unit. The lower unit is composed primarily green and gray mudstones, with numerous lenticular, white to tan to gray sandstones. The upper is composed mostly of red mudstone, with lesser amounts of yellowish, often tabular sandstone. These two units probably correspond to the Tidwell, Saltwash and Brushy Basin members of the Morrison Formation on the Colorado Plateau.

Dinosaurs

The discovery of dinosaurs in the Garden Park area has been presented numerous times by Schuchert and LeVene, Shur, Ostrom and McIntosh, and Jaffe. The lesser known post-Marsh and Cope collecting of dinosaurs has been presented by Monaco. She recounts the expeditions by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in the early 20th century, the Denver Museum of Natural History in the 1930 and 1990s, and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in the mid-1950s.

Dinosaurs from Garden Park on display include Allosaurus
Allosaurus
Allosaurus is a genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic period . The name Allosaurus means "different lizard". It is derived from the Greek /allos and /sauros...

 fragilis
, Diplodocus
Diplodocus
Diplodocus , or )is a genus of diplodocid sauropod dinosaur whose fossils were first discovered in 1877 by S. W. Williston. The generic name, coined by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878, is a Neo-Latin term derived from Greek "double" and "beam", in reference to its double-beamed chevron bones...

 longus
, Ceratosaurus
Ceratosaurus
Ceratosaurus meaning "horned lizard", in reference to the horn on its nose , was a large predatory theropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic Period , found in the Morrison Formation of North America, in Tanzania and Portugal...

 nasicornis
, and Stegosaurus
Stegosaurus
Stegosaurus is a genus of armored stegosaurid dinosaur. They lived during the Late Jurassic period , some 155 to 150 million years ago in what is now western North America. In 2006, a specimen of Stegosaurus was announced from Portugal, showing that they were present in Europe as well...

 stenops
at the National Museum of Natural History, Haplocanthosaurus
Haplocanthosaurus
Haplocanthosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur. Two species, H. delfsi and H. priscus, are known from incomplete fossil skeletons. It lived during the late Jurassic period , 155 to 152 million years ago. The type species is H. priscus, and the referred species H...

 delfsi
at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and Othnielosaurus
Othnielosaurus
Othnielosaurus is a genus of ornithischian dinosaur that lived about 155 to 148 million years ago, during the Late Jurassic-age Morrison Formation of the western United States. It is named in honor of famed paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh, and was formerly assigned to the genus...

 consors
(then called Othnielia
Othnielia
Othnielia is a genus of ornithischian dinosaur, named after its original describer, Professor Othniel Charles Marsh, an American paleontologist of the 19th century...

 rex
), Stegosaurus stenops and a clutch of Preprismatoolithus coloradensis eggs at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Cleveland Museum of Natural History Quarry

Reptilia
Testudines
Amphichelydia
Glyptops
Glyptops
Glyptops is an extinct genus of cryptodire turtle dating from the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous periods 155 to 99 m.y.a. Fossils have been found in South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas from both the Morrison and Cedar Mountain formations. The type species is G...

 plicatus
Crocodilia
Mesosuchia
Eutretauranosuchus
Eutretauranosuchus
Eutretauranosuchus is a genus of goniopholidid mesoeucrocodylian. It is known from several specimens collected from the Late Jurassic-age Morrison Formation, including fossils from Garden Park and Dry Mesa Quarry in Colorado and Como Bluff in Wyoming. The type species is E. delfsi...

 delfsi

Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Haplocanthosaurus delfsi

Cope's Quarries

CS 1 (Cope's Nipple = Saurian Hill)
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Camarasaurus supremus (h)
Caulodon leptoganus (h) nomen dubium (now Camarasaurus sp.)
Theropod
Laelaps trihedrodon nomen dubium (now Allosaurus)

Quarry 1
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Morosaurus laticollis (h) nomen dubium (now Apatosaurus
Apatosaurus
Apatosaurus , also known by the popular but scientifically deprecated synonym Brontosaurus, is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived from about 154 to 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period . It was one of the largest land animals that ever existed, with an average length of and a...

sp.)
Theropod
Laelaps trihedrodon (h) nomen dubium (now Allosaurus)

Quarry 2
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Camarasaurus leptodirus (h) nomen dubium (now Camarasaurus supremus)
Theropoda
Epanterias amplexus (h) nomen dubium (now Allosaurus?)
Ornithischia
Stegosauria
Hypsirophus discurus

Quarry 3
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Amphicoelias
Amphicoelias
Amphicoelias is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur that includes what may be the largest dinosaur ever discovered, A. fragillimus. Based on surviving descriptions of a single fossil bone, A. fragillimus may have been the longest known vertebrate at in length, and may have had a mass of up...

 fragillimus (h)

Quarry 4
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Amphicoelias fragillimus?
Ornithischia
Ornithopoda
Symphyrophus musculosus (h) nomen dubium (now Goniopholis?)

Quarry 5 (=Denver Museum of Natural History
Camarasaurus)
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Camarasaurus
Camarasaurus
Camarasaurus meaning 'chambered lizard', referring to the hollow chambers in its vertebrae was a genus of quadrupedal, herbivorous dinosaurs. It was the most common of the giant sauropods to be found in North America...

 supremus

Quarry 6
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Camarasaurus supremus

Quarry 7
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Amphicoelias sp.
Camarasaurus supremus

Quarry 8 (CS 2; The Fort)
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Camarasaurus supremus

Quarry 9
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda?

Quarry 10
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda?

Quarry 11
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda?

Quarry 12
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Amphicoelias altus (h)

Quarry 13
Dinosauria indeterminant
Quarry 14
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Amphicoelias latus nomen dubium (now Camarasaurus supremus)

Quarry 15 (Oil Tract)
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Amphiceolias latus (h) (now Camarasaurus sp.)

The following cannot be assigned to specific quarries
Reptilia
Testudines
Amphichelydia
Glyptops plicatulus

Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Caulodon diversidens (h) nomen dubium (now Camarasaurus sp.)
Ornithischia
Ornithopoda?
Tichosteus lucasanus (h) nomen dubium (ornithopod?)
Tichosteus aequifacies (h) nomen dubium (Glyptops?)
Brachyrophus altarkansanus (h) nomen dubium (now Camptosaurus
Camptosaurus
Camptosaurus is a genus of plant-eating, beaked ornithischian dinosaurs of the Late Jurassic period of western North America. The name means 'flexible lizard', ....

sp.)
Stegosauria
Hypsirophus seeleyanus (h)

Denver Museum of Natural History

Deweese Quarry (DMNH)
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Diplodocus sp.

Egg Gulch
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Theropoda
Prismatoolithus coloradensis (eggs)
Ornithischia
Ornithopoda
Dryosaurus
Dryosaurus
Dryosaurus is a genus of an ornithopod dinosaur that lived in the Late Jurassic period. It was an iguanodont . Fossils have been found in the western United States, and were first discovered in the late 19th century...

? sp.

Kessler's Quarry
Reptilia
Testudines
Amphichelydia
Glyptops plicatus
Crocodilia
Mesosuchia
Goniopholis
Goniopholis
Goniopholis is an extinct genus of crocodyliform that lived in North America, Europe and Asia during the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous. Being semi-aquatic it is very similar to modern crocodiles...

sp.

Dinosauria
Saurischia
Theropoda
Torvosaurus
Torvosaurus
Torvosaurus is a genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived during the Late Jurassic period...

sp.
Ornithischia
Ornithopoda
genus and species indeterminant
Stegosauria
Stegosaurus stenops

|

Denver Museum of Natural History - continued

Lindsey Quarry
Amphibia
Anura

Reptilia
Testudines
Amphichelydia
Glyptops plicatus
Rhynchocephalia
Opisthias
Opisthias
Opisthias is a Late Jurassic genus of sphenodont reptile from the Morrison Formation of western North America, present in stratigraphic zones 2 and 4-6.-See also:* Prehistoric reptile* Paleobiota of the Morrison Formation...

 rarus

Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Camarasaurus grandis
Theropoda
Allosaurus fragilis
Ornithischia
Ornithopoda
genus and species indeterminant

Mammalia
Multituberculata
genus and species indeterminant

Meyer Site 1
Reptilia
Crocodilia
Mesosuchia
Goniopholis sp.

Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
genus and species indeterminant
Theropoda
Allosaurus sp.

Meyer Site 2
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Theropoda
Torvosaurus cf. T. tanneri

Meyer Site 3
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Diplodocus sp.

Not-A-Haplocanthosaurus Quarry
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Diplodocidae indeterminant
Theropoda
genus and species unknown

Small's Quarry
Osteichthyes
Actinopterygii
genus and species indeterminant
Sarcopterygii
Dipnoi
Ceratodus guentheri

Reptilia
Testudines
Amphichelydia
Dinochelys
Dinochelys
Dinochelys is an extinct genus of paracryptodiran turtle from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation....

 whitei
Glyptops plicatus
Squamata
?Sauria indeterminant
Lacertilia
Pterosauria
Kepodactylus
Kepodactylus
Kepodactylus is an extinct genus of pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Kimmeridgian-Tithonian-age Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Colorado, USA....

 grandis (h)
Crocodylia
Mesosuchia
Goniopholis sp.

Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Apatosaurus excelsus
Theropoda
Elaphrosaurus
Elaphrosaurus
Elaphrosaurus is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the Kimmeridgian stage of the Late Jurassic of Tanzania. Elaphrosaurus was probably a ceratosaur about 6 meters long. Suggestions that it is a late surviving coelophysoid have been entertained but are generally dismissed. It was first...

sp.
genus and species indeterminant
Ornithiscia
Ornithopoda
Dryosaurus altus
genus and species indeterminant
Stegosauria
Stegosaurus stenops
Ankylosauria
?Mymoorapelta
Mymoorapelta
Mymoorapelta is an ankylosaur from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of western Colorado. The taxon is known from portions of a disarticulated skull, parts of three different skeletons and other postcranial remains...

sp.

Mammalia
Docodonta
Docodontidae
Docodon
Docodon
Docodon was an omnivorous mammal from the middle to upper Jurassic Period that lived in Europe and North America approximately 175.6 to 144 million years ago. Docodon likely inhabited woodland and stayed in trees out of the reach of predators...

sp.
Dryolestidae
new genus and species

Valley of Death Locality
Reptilia
Testudines
Amphichelydia
Glyptops plicatulus

Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Diplodocus sp.
Ornithischia
Ornithopoda
Othnielosaurus consor

Marsh Quarries

Jennings and Johnson Locality
Reptilia
Crocodilia
Hallopus
Hallopus
Hallopus was a prehistoric reptile, classified by O. C. Marsh in 1881 as a dinosaur. In fact it was probably a crocodilian or possibly a more primitive crurotarsan, and may be closely related to Junggarsuchus ....

 victor

Felch Quarry 1
Osteichthyes
Sarcopterygii
Dipnoi
Ceratodus
Ceratodus
Ceratodus was a wide-ranging genus of extinct sarcopterygiian lungfish. Fossil evidence dates back to the Middle Triassic 228 million years ago. A wide range of fossil species from different time periods have been found around the world in places such as the United States, Argentina, England,...

 guentheri

Reptilia
Testudines
Amphichelydia
Dinochelys
Dinochelys
Dinochelys is an extinct genus of paracryptodiran turtle from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation....

 whitei
Glyptops plicatulus' '
Crocodylia
Mesosuchia
Eutretauranosuchus sp.
Goniophotis felchi (h)

Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Apatosaurus sp.
Brachiosaurus
Brachiosaurus
Brachiosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Jurassic Morrison Formation of North America. It was first described by Elmer S. Riggs in 1903 from fossils found in the Grand River Canyon of western Colorado, in the United States. Riggs named the dinosaur Brachiosaurus altithorax,...

sp.
Diplodocus longus (h)
Haplocanthosaurus priscus (h)
Haplocanthosaurus utterbacki (h) nomen dubium (now H. priscus)
Theropoda
Allosaurus fragilis (h)
Ceratosaurus nasicornis (h)
Coelurus
Coelurus
Coelurus is a genus of coelurosaur dinosaur from the Late Jurassic period . The name means "hollow tail", referring to its hollow tail vertebrae...

 agilis
Elaphrosaurus sp.
Labrosaurus ferox (h) nomen dubium (now Allosaurus fragilis)
Ornithischia
Ornithopoda
Dryosaurus altus
Othnielia
Othnielia
Othnielia is a genus of ornithischian dinosaur, named after its original describer, Professor Othniel Charles Marsh, an American paleontologist of the 19th century...

 rex
and now Othnielosaurus consor
Stegosauria
Stegosaurus stenops (h)
Stegosaurus armatus

Felch Quarry 2
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Sauropoda
Diplodocus longus
Theropoda
genus and species indeterminant
Ornithischia
Ornithopoda
Laosaurus
Laosaurus
Laosaurus is a genus of hypsilophodont dinosaur. The type species is Laosaurus celer, first described by O.C. Marsh in 1878 from remains from the Oxfordian-Tithonian-age Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Wyoming. The validity of this genus is doubtful because it is based on fragmentary fossils...

sp.

Lucas's Site
Reptilia
Crocodylia
Mesosuchia
Goniopholis lucasii

Dinosauria
Ornithischia
Ornithopoda
Nanosaurus
Nanosaurus
Nanosaurus is the name given to a genus of dinosaur from the Late Jurassic. Described by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1877, it is a poorly-known ornithischian of uncertain affinities. Its fossils are known from the Morrison Formation of Colorado and possibly Wyoming...

 agilis
(h)

|}

External links

  • Garden Park Fossil Area - Bureau of Land Management
    Bureau of Land Management
    The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately , or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. The BLM also manages of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private...

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