Shell is an unincorporated community

Unincorporated area

In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...

 in Big Horn County, Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

The community is named for the abundance of fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

 shell

Exoskeleton

An exoskeleton is the external skeleton that supports and protects an animal's body, in contrast to the internal skeleton of, for example, a human. In popular usage, some of the larger kinds of exoskeletons are known as "shells". Examples of exoskeleton animals include insects such as grasshoppers...

s located in the area. Nearby exposed formations such as the Cloverly Formation

Cloverly Formation

The Cloverly Formation are Lower Cretaceous strata located in Montana and Wyoming, in the western United States. The term now includes strata that had formerly been called the Dakota Formation in central and southern Wyoming.-Members:...

 and 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...

 have yielded numerous fossils of dinosaur

Dinosaur

Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...

s and other animals. Located to the west of the town is the Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite

Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite

Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite is an assemblage of fossil dinosaur footprints discovered in 1997 on public land near Shell, Wyoming by , a research geologist from the Indiana Geological Survey. The tracks are believed to have been made during the Middle Jurassic Period, 160-180 million years b.p.,...

, a rare collection of dinosaur tracks from the 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...

.

Geography

Shell is located at the base of the Big Horn Mountains

Big Horn Mountains

The Big Horn Mountains are a mountain range in northern Wyoming and southern Montana in the United States, forming a northwest-trending spur from the Rocky Mountains extending approximately 200 miles northward on the Great Plains...

, at the mouth of Shell Canyon. Nearby Shell Creek

Shell Creek

Shell Creek is a tributary of the Bighorn River, approximately 50 mi long, in Wyoming in the United States. Lying entirely within Big Horn County, Shell Creek begins above the Shell Lakes in the Bighorn Mountains...

 rises in the Big Horn Mountains

Big Horn Mountains

The Big Horn Mountains are a mountain range in northern Wyoming and southern Montana in the United States, forming a northwest-trending spur from the Rocky Mountains extending approximately 200 miles northward on the Great Plains...

 and joins the Big Horn River just north of Greybull

Greybull, Wyoming

Greybull is a town in Big Horn County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 1,815 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Greybull is located at ....

.