Life at Dinosaur Lake

Life at Dinosaur Lake. . Today the Purgatoire River rolls through a rugged, arid landscape in a deeply carved canyon, but imagine a lush conifer forest and verdant ferns right where you're standing! , Learning from the Layers , The layers of rock at the tracksite have much to teach us about the world of Jurassic dinosaurs. In addition to footprints, the rock layers record ripple marks, mud cracks, and casts of salt crystals. , These clues tell us that the layers formed along the edge of a brackish freshwater lake similar to today's Great Salt Lake. “Dinosaur Lake" has yielded other fossils such freshwater clams, fish scales, plant impressions, and microscopic aquatic invertebrates that also tell the story of the Jurassic world. , Captions: , During the Jurassic Period, southeastern Colorado was dominated by a vast but shallow inland lake. In this depiction, large sauropod and smaller ornithischian dinosaurs walk along the muddy shore. The Rocky Mountains had not yet emerged and the land was gently rolling conifer forests laced with stream valleys. , Rainwater beautifully highlights these sauropod tracks