An active dinosaur excavation site will be opened for public tours on Friday. The Bureau of Land Management Utah is partnering with the Burpee Museum of Illinois, to conduct guided tours at a quarry in Wayne County.
The free public tours are designed to introduce young people to an active excavation site at a quarry located about 10 miles northwest of Hanksville, Utah. Educational staff from the Burpee Museum have come from Illinois to provide daily tours, talk about current and past excavations, and answer questions about dinosaurs. This summer marks the eighth season that the Bureau of Land Management and the Burpee Museum have partnered to excavate the site. Sue Fivecoat works for the BLM at the Henry Mountains Field Station near the quarry. She says people on the tour may see the bones of a long-necked sauropod, an allosaurus, a stegosaurus, or possibly something more unusual.
“Last year, they found what they felt was a fairly rare example of an armored dinosaur in this quarry, which there haven’t been too many of those uncovered, so they’re still finding new species every year at the quarry,” Fivecoat says. “We’re always excited to see what they might uncover this year.”
The tours begin May 29 and run through June 6.
