RICHFIELD — Guided tours of the Hanksville-Burpee Dinosaur Quarry will be offered to the public in June.
Guides from the Burpee Museum in Illinois will provide information about the excavation and answer questions concerning the paleontological site.
Weather permitting, public tours are scheduled for June 7, 9-14, and 16-20. Tours will start on the hour from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will last approximately 40 minutes. Groups will be limited to a maximum of 20 people per tour. Visitors should be able to walk over uneven, rocky terrain unassisted. Temperatures may be in the upper 90s, so visitors should also carry water.
There will be no tours in the event weather prevents the paleontological field crew from working.
The Hanksville-Burpee Dinosaur Quarry is located approximately 10 miles northwest of Hanksville. The road to the site is native surface and is recommended for high-clearance vehicles only and not suitable for passenger cars. For specific directions to the site, please call or visit the BLM-Utah Hanksville Field Station at 380 South 100 West, Hanksville, or call 435-542-3461.
Last summer, paleontologists from the Burpee Museum of Rockford, Ill., began preliminary excavations at the site. After only three weeks of excavation, the quarry yielded at least four long-necked sauropods, two carnivorous dinosaurs and a possible herbivorous Stegosaurus. Similar in age to the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry near Price, the Hanksville-Burpee site is 145 million-150 million years old.