Dinosaur National Monument re-opens Carnegie Quarry for first time in 5 years

by Kraig Becker on

Dinosaur National Monument is one of the lesser known gems in the U.S. National Park system. Spread out across parts of Colorado and Utah, the park is home to an amazing display of fossils left over from the Jurassic era. In fact, the park’s Carnegie Quarry is considered one of the best places on Earth to view the remains of a wide variety of dinosaurs. For the past five years however, the Quarry has been hidden from the eyes of visitors due to an ongoing construction project. On Tuesday, that will change.

The National Park Service has announced that the all new Quarry Exhibit Hall will officially open on Tuesday, October 4th at 11 AM local time. When the facility does open, it will allow visitors to view the world famous fossil wall, where the remains of nearly 1500 different dinosaurs are encased. Amongst the species on display are Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Torvosaurus, to name just a few.

The Quarry Exhibit Hall joins a new visitor center, which was just opened this past Wednesday, as well. The visitor center serves as a gateway to the Quarry and features its own exhibits, bookstore, and theater. The two were built in conjunction with one another over the past few years and are now ready for the public to enjoy.

The official ribbon cutting ceremony will be attended by Utah Governor Gary Herbert and a number of other guests, such as Park Paleontologist Dan Chure and the jazz and marching bands from a local high school. The public is invited of course, and for fans of dinosaurs, this is sure to be a grand occasion. After all, for the first time in a half-decade, we’ll all have the opportunity to see one of the best displays of natural history on the planet.

Video from inside the Washington Monument during the earthquake

by Kraig Becker on

Yesterday, the National Park Service released video from inside of the Washington Monument showing just how much the structure shook during that 5.8-magnitude earthquake that hit the East Coast last month. Startled visitors and park rangers appear uncertain of what to do at first, then begin to calmly and orderly move down the building, with one ranger in the lead and another staying behind to ensure that everyone gets out safely. As the video continues, debris begins to fall, obscuring the view to a degree, and giving an indication of the amount of a damage suffered to the interior.

The Park Service says that the monument is structurally sound, although it is unclear at this time when it will reopen. A team of engineers will begin a comprehensive inspection of the obelisk today by repelling down the side of the structure. That will take about five days to complete, but the overall assessment won’t be finished until sometime later in October. From there, renovations will get underway, while the building also undergoes its annual preparation for winter as well.


U.S. national parks are fee-free this Saturday

by Kraig Becker on

Looking for something to do this weekend? Want to get outside and enjoy the first days of fall? Well, you’re in luck, as the National Park Service is celebrating National Public Lands Day by waiving entry fees to all national parks this Saturday, September 24. That means you’ll be able to visit more than 400 different parks across the country absolutely free.

Since it first began back in 1994, National Public Lands Day has been an annual event that has focused on protecting shared outdoor spaces across the country. Each year, groups of volunteers get together at various sites in all 50 U.S. states to work together to improve trails, clean-up parks, plant trees, and a variety of other projects. In 2010 alone, more 170,000 volunteers, spread out over 2080 sites, participated in these events. Similar numbers are expected this weekend as well.

Some of the projects that will be worked on this weekend include the removal of fences near Yellowstone National Park to facilitate the movement of wildlife, the cleaning of trash along a Green Belt trail in Austin, Texas, and the repainting of a fence at the Appomattox Course House in Virginia. As of this writing, there are more than 1800 sites registered on the NPLD website, with more being added every day. To find a project close to where you live, click here.

Of course, if you would rather just take advantage of the fee-free day to enjoy some time in your favorite national park, that is perfectly acceptable too. The complete list of parks that are participating can be found here.

The park service has three more fee-free days scheduled for 2011. On November 11-13, entry fees will be waived in honor of Veterans Day weekend.

Petrified Forest National Park expands by 26,000 acres

by Sean McLachlan on


The Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona just got bigger to the tune of 26,000 acres.

After years of negotiation, the National Park Service bought the land from a ranching family, the Daily Democrat reports. This land had been enveloped by the park when it expanded from 93,500 acres to 218,500 acres in 2004.

The park is famous for its colorful petrified trees scattered across the landscape. The scenery is equally colorful, with rugged hills striated with differently hued stone.

Since the new acquisition is remote ranching land closed to visitors, it should prove a treasure trove to archaeologists and paleontologists. Traces of prehistoric Native Americans, such as arrowheads and petroglyphs (rock art) are common finds in the park, and many dinosaur bones have also been found. Scientists get first dibs on the area, so it will be at least a few years before it opens to the public.

[Photo courtesy the Petrified Forest Ranger, who has an amazing photostream on flickr]

Remembering 9/11 ten years later: Where you can pay respect

by Melanie Renzulli on




Everyone remembers what he or she was doing on September 11, 2001. From the moment American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center (8:46 a.m. EDT) to the horrific realization that the United States was under attack, every person has a story to share, whether of what they were doing on that fateful day to memories of personal survival or tragic loss.

Ten years have passed since the terrorism attacks of September 11 changed the world forever. From the war in Afghanistan to airline regulations, we live with the legacy of 9/11 on a daily basis. But while 9/11 is at the forefront of our minds, many of us have lost sight of the thousands of lives that were lost on that fall day. A decade later, there are three memorials – at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania – where we can remember the dead, honor the survivors, and reflect on the events of September 11, 2001.National September 11 Memorial and Museum
New York City
Located at Ground Zero, where the two towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed and 2,753 lives lost, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, known simply as the 9/11 Memorial, will be inaugurated in an official ceremony on September 11, 2011. The 9/11 Memorial will not open to the public until September 12, 2011, and its museum, to be located in a plaza underneath the memorial, is not scheduled to open until September 2012.

Like the Twin Towers, the 9/11 Memorial is huge in scale. Set on eight acres and filled-in with 415 trees, the memorial is comprised of two fountain cascades that are the exact size of the footprints of the two buildings. Lining the edges of the fountains is a bronze strip engraved with the names of the victims from the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and United Flight 93, as well as the names of the seven people who died in the World Trade Center bombing on February 26, 1993.

Admission to the 9/11 Memorial is free, but visitors must reserve a time to visit. You can request visitor passes here, but note that as of this writing, the first available time available is on September 14. There are also 9/11 family member visitor passes for those who are related to victims listed on the memorial.

Pentagon Memorial
Arlington, Virginia
Open since September 11, 2008, the Pentagon Memorial is a quiet reminder of the 184 men, women, and children who died when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the southwest edge of the Pentagon. The memorial contains a series of benches, each etched with a name, laid out on the western side of the Pentagon Reservation. Benches pointing towards the Pentagon refer to those who were inside the Pentagon when the plane struck; benches pointing in the opposite direction represent the airline passengers and crew who perished. The Pentagon Memorial is free and open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Guided tours are not available.

Flight 93 National Memorial
Shanksville, Pennsylvania
Maintained by the National Park Service, this memorial to the victims of Flight 93 is located in the field where the hijacked plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2001. The Flight 93 National Memorial has had several temporary memorials and is still under construction. But the official dedication ceremony of the first phase of construction for the permanent memorial will take place on September 11, 2011. Similar to the other two memorials, the Flight 93 memorial will contain a Memorial Wall of Names inscribed with the names of the 44 people who died. Admission to the Flight 93 National Memorial is free and the memorial will officially open to the public at 2 p.m. on September 12, 2011.

Image from Wikipedia

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