Covering the states that make up the Four Corners of the American Southwest, the Colorado Plateau is a rich landscape carved up into canyons, high plateaus, mesas, and buttes, and littered with volcanic peaks. Frozen into the rock layers of this colorful and varied terrain are the fossil remains of dinosaurs, marine reptiles, fantastic plant life, and small mammals; all a clue to the evolution of life on planet Earth.

Whether it is evidence of life in giant sand dunes or swamps and shallow seas or large river systems and massive conifer forests, every fossil specimen of this ancient life that is uncovered continues to teach us how amazing and varied life on Earth is and has been. The fossil record on the Colorado Plateau spans 1.8 billion years and the region has fast become a rich landscape for fossil discoveries that have changed our understanding of North American Paleontology. And, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument are at the heart of many of these discoveries with new species of plesiosaurs, hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, and raptors just to name a few.

        

© 2008 Powell Symposium
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