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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE • U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. Foundation Document Overview. Dinosaur National Monument. Utah / Colorado.

Contact Information, For more information about the Dinosaur National Monument Foundation Document, contact: [email protected] or (435) 781-7700 or write to: Superintendent, Dinosaur National Monument, 4545 E. Highway 40, Dinosaur, CO 81610 Purpose. Significance.

Significance statements express why Dinosaur National Monument resources and values are important enough to merit national park unit designation. Statements of significance describe why an area is important within a global, national, regional, and systemwide context. These statements are linked to the purpose of the park unit, and are supported by data, research, and consensus. Significance statements describe the distinctive nature of the park and inform management decisions, focusing efforts on preserving and protecting the most important resources and values of the park unit.

• The world famous Carnegie Quarry provides a remarkable window onto the Late Jurassic world of dinosaurs. There the National Park Service pioneered the in situ (in place) preservation of fossils, with 1,500 dinosaur bones available for viewing, touching, and study. This approach has served as a model for many other fossil sites around the world.

• Dinosaur National Monument displays the most complete geological record of any national park unit. The 23 rock formations and their fossils reveal vast environmental and Dinosaur National Monument biological changes over 1.1 billion years of Earth history, protects, studies, and provides access spanning the Pre-Cambrian to Cenozoic eras. Powerful to extraordinary fossil deposits of geologic forces have uplifted, eroded, and exposed these dinosaurs and other life, a record layers in spectacular faults, folds, and canyons that continue of thousands of years of human to inspire new questions for general visitors as well as for occupation and use, and the wild and professional geologists and paleontologists. ecologically diverse landscape shaped • The exceptionally diverse communities of plants and by the Green and Yampa Rivers. animals within Dinosaur National Monument result from its geographic location at the hub of five major biophysical regions, as well as the strikingly large number of geologic substrates and varied topography, ranging from river bottoms to montane peaks.

• Over 90% of Dinosaur National Monument retains substantial wilderness character, which provides opportunities for visitors to experience solitude, natural sounds, dark night skies, wilderness whitewater recreation, wildlife viewing, and inspirational scenic vistas.

• Dinosaur National Monument contains the lower 46 miles of the Yampa River, which is the last remaining large, free-flowing river in the entire Colorado River system. The Yampa’s natural snowmelt-driven flow provides a unique whitewater rafting experience and important habitat for native and endangered Colorado River Basin fish. Fundamental Resources and Values.

• The confluence of the Yampa and Green Rivers within Dinosaur National Monument provides outstanding opportunities to observe and study a wild river (Yampa), a flow-regulated river (Green above confluence), and a hybrid river (Green below the confluence) within the context of the Colorado River Basin. Comparing the three river reaches informs management for long-term river ecosystem health and function in the face of climate change and human population growth.

• The proposal to dam the Green River below Echo Park in the 1950s galvanized the nation’s fledgling conservation organizations into a potent political power that defended the national park idea. The resolution of this controversy Fundamental resources and values are those features, systems, empowered the conservation movement and set the stage processes, experiences, stories, scenes, sounds, smells, or for the Wilderness Act and establishment of the National other attributes determined to merit primary consideration Wilderness Preservation System. during planning and management processes because they are essential to achieving the purpose of the park and maintaining • Explorer John Wesley Powell set the stage for whitewater its significance. boating on the wild rivers within Dinosaur National Monument—a unique, high-quality, nonmotorized boating • Paleontological Resources/Fossils and the Fossil Record. experience. Many historic innovations in whitewater craft design and technique were developed specifically to run • Carnegie Quarry. the Yampa and Green Rivers in what is today Dinosaur • Geological Resources. National Monument. • • Dinosaur National Monument is unique in preserving Cultural Resources. and protecting a complete chronology of the prehistoric • Scenic Vistas. Fremont Indian culture, providing excellent opportunities for research and education. This record includes over 400 • Wilderness Character. documented sites, such as seasonal gathering sites, hunting sites, villages, rock art, and other associated artifacts. • Biologically Diverse Landscapes.

• Yampa and Green River System.

• Scientific Study.

• Museum Collections and Archives.

Dinosaur National Monument contains other resources and values that may not be fundamental to the purpose and significance of the park, but are important to consider in management and planning decisions. These are referred to as other important resources and values.

• Recreational Resources—Rivers.

• Recreational Resources—Nonboating Backcountry Recreation. Description.

The essence of Dinosaur National Monument involves the conservation Over 10,000 years of human heritage is also of a biologically diverse landscape of desert, mountains, and two river represented, including resources such as canyons, with an abundance of ancient fossils and past environments petroglyphs, pictographs, a variety of artifacts preserved in rock. This exemplary collection of resources is reflected by related to the prehistoric Fremont culture, and the two distinct moments in its history: the initial establishment of an 80-acre ongoing importance of these lands to Shoshone monument in 1915 to protect the “extraordinary deposit of Dinosaurian and Ute cultures. The monument also has a diverse and other gigantic reptilian remains,” and the 200,000-acre expansion in collection of histories and artifacts from European 1938 to protect the surrounding scenic canyons of the Yampa and Green and early American settlement and exploration, Rivers for many miles upstream and downstream of their confluence. including Spanish exploration, homesteading, ranching, and John Wesley Powell’s history of The geologic and paleontological resources in the monument showcase traversing the monument’s rivers. a great diversity of geologic landforms, 23 exposed geologic strata that developed over 1.1 billion years, and the associated plant and animal life, Dinosaur National Monument also provides most notably a world-renowned fossil record. Carnegie Fossil Quarry, a wealth of experiential opportunities for the marquee site at the monument, includes over 1,500 paleontological visitors that range from active recreation in wild resources and has shared fossils with museums around the world. The backcountry or on wild rivers, to hands-on monument also protects an exceptional living biological diversity that stems educational experiences at the many scientific from its location at the transition zone of multiple physiographic provinces, exhibits or cultural sites. Given its remote location, including the Wyoming Basin, Great Basin, central Rocky Mountains, and it also offers extensive visitor opportunities for Colorado Plateau. This location, combined with local topography that solitude, discovery, and appreciation of unspoiled spans high desert areas to riparian river valleys, provides a unique blend landscapes, skies, and waterways. of natural conditions that support over 1,000 plant and animal species.

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