Mill Canyon/Copper Ridge Dinosaur Tracks

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The Mill Canyon Dinosaur Trail is a bold experiment; there are no guards or fences here. You, the visitor, are the protector of this valuable resource. It is illegal to remove, deface, or destroy improvements, rocks, and fossils.

The dry climate and eroded landscape of today is very different from the environment that existed when dinosaurs roamed southern Utah. Climates were mild and moist during the Jurassic period 150 million years ago. The fossil remains of plants and numerous dinosaurs are typically found in the Morrison Formation.

The Morrison Formation is a complex series of clays, shales, and sandstones that settled in swamps, bogs, shallow lakes, and the broad and often slow moving streams that wandered over a low-lying featureless landscape. Cycads, ginkgoes, and conifers formed forests, shading an undergrowth comprised largely of ferns.

Horsetails and succulent plants grew abundantly in swamps and bogs. The Morrison Formation contains the fossil remains of plants and numerous kinds of dinosaurs including: Allosaurus,    Camptosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Camarasaurus.