Parfet Prehistoric Preserve | |
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![]() Visitors examine the preserved tracks at the Parfet Prehistoric Preserve | |
Location | Golden, Colorado, USA |
Coordinates | 39°44′36.19″N105°13′16.64″W / 39.7433861°N 105.2212889°W Coordinates: 39°44′36.19″N105°13′16.64″W / 39.7433861°N 105.2212889°W |
Designated | 2011 |
The Parfet Prehistoric Preserve is a dinosaur track site in Golden, Colorado. The site is accessible to the public via the Triceratops Trail, a 1.5-mile walking trail maintained by the Friends of Dinosaur Ridge. [1]
Tracks include those of Triceratops, a possible Tyrannosaurus rex, and a possible Edmontosaurusa. Non-dinosaur tracks include those of birds, small mammals, and beetles. Palm frond impressions are also preserved.
The tracks occur in the Upper Cretaceous Laramie Formation, deposited in a semi-tropical swamp about 68 million years ago. The tracks were exposed by a now-discontinued clay mining at the Parfet Clay Pits. [2] The tracks were exposed when the clay layers were removed by the mining, revealing track impressions preserved in the overlying sandstone layers, which are now tilted into a vertical position.
The site was designated a National Natural Landmark in June 2011 by expansion of the Morrison Fossil Area, also known as Dinosaur Ridge, which is about three miles south of the Parfet Prehistoric Preserve. The combined National Natural Landmark is now the Morrisson-Golden Fossil Areas. [3]
Dinosaur National Monument is an American national monument located on the southeast flank of the Uinta Mountains on the border between Colorado and Utah at the confluence of the Green and Yampa rivers. Although most of the monument area is in Moffat County, Colorado, the Dinosaur Quarry is located in Utah, north of the town of Jensen, Utah at 40°26′29″N109°18′04″W. The nearest Colorado town is Dinosaur while the nearest city is Vernal, Utah.
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The Hell Creek Formation is an intensively-studied division of mostly Upper Cretaceous and some lower Paleocene rocks in North America, named for exposures studied along Hell Creek, near Jordan, Montana. The formation stretches over portions of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. In Montana, the Hell Creek Formation overlies the Fox Hills Formation. The site of Pompeys Pillar National Monument is a small isolated section of the Hell Creek Formation. In 1966, the Hell Creek Fossil Area was designated as a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.
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The Laramie Formation is a geologic formation of Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) age, named by Clarence King in 1876 for exposures in northeastern Colorado, in the United States. It was deposited on a coastal plain and in coastal swamps that flanked the Western Interior Seaway. It contains coal, clay and uranium deposits, as well as plant and animal fossils, including dinosaur remains.
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