Customer Reviews

Dinosaurs Of Utah

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This book is about the dinosaurs of Utah (and dinosaurs found close enough to Utah that it can safely be presumed they crossed the border), but it is also second to none I've read as a discussion of U.S. dinosaurs in general if you're already brushed up on your dino basics (although not overly technical, the author does waste no time in getting down to business).

The book covers equally the great dinosaurs of the midwest - especially the Jurassic dinosaurs the area is world famous for - and their environment (an asset or a negative depending on your interests). A particular strength is that almost equal space is given to the more obscure species and their more famous counterparts when the fossil record warrants it. Gorgeous artwork clinches this work as a gem - certainly in my top 10 dino books.

Terrific. Intelligent and readable combination of palentology and geology of Utah. I used to live in SLC and visited eastern and southeastern Utah. The incredible vistas comprise the largest museum in the world. Wonderful to see in again in photos. The paintings of the Mesozoic are spectacular. This book deserves a place in your library, public or home.

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You'll know this book when you see it - the dust jacket features a toothy Allosaurus (Utah's official State Fossil) sporting yellow polka-dots. Barney he ain't.

Author Frank de Courten is a palaeontologist, formerly at the You of You, now at Sierra College in California. De Courten, with handlebar mustachio and cowboy hat, fits comfortably into the romantic image of a Dinologist, and he's well-aware of the popular appeal of the critters. Fortunately he's literate too (another pretty-common trait in the trade, thank heavens), and his prose reads smoothly, though you're going to have to be *seriously* interested to get through all 300 oversize pages...

But it's a beautiful book, nice heavy smooth paper, full cloth binding, lots of color photos, some really *outstanding* color plates by artist Carel van Kampen -- really, it's a lot of book for [the money]. At the very least, check it out from your library, and of course if there's a dino-lover on your gift list...

Happy reading--
Pete Tillman
Consulting Geologist, Tucson & Santa Fe (USA)

I LOVE this book. It's beautiful. I've read it three times, as has my brother.

If I had one book to take with me into outer space and read over and over it would be this book. DeCourten is such a good writer and knows his stuff. You won't be disappointed.

_Dinosaurs of Utah_ is a book that author Frank DeCourten first conceived of in the late 1980s while teaching a course on dinosaurs at the University of Utah. He had envisioned a book that would collect all of the latest information on Mesozoic Utah with most of the focus being on dinosaurs and after years of work was able to publish this well-illustrated book in 1998. Though the book is titled _Dinosaurs of Utah_ it will be of use to anyone interested in paleontology and particularly in dinosaurs.

The first chapter was an overview of the Mesozoic world as a whole, with particular emphasis on non-dinosaur fauna, paleogeography, and geology of the Mesozoic. It was interesting to learn how unusual Mesozoic geology was; normally the polarity of the Earth's magnetic field reverses itself about every one-half million years but for some reason about 118 million years ago the magnetic field shifted from reverse to normal and stayed that way for 35 million years ago. The reasons for this unique event are not understood; are they connected to the intense volcanism of the Mesozoic? More igneous rock formed both on the surface and underground in the Cretaceous than during any other geologic period. It was also interesting to learn that the ocean's circulation systems were quite different back then; today's circulation of water in the deeper ocean basins is driven by frigid polar water sinking and continuously displacing warmer, less dense water on the abyssal plains. With no cold polar waters, were the deepest ocean waters stagnant, oxygen-starved, and virtually lifeless?

Chapter two was a pretty basic chapter as one can guess from its title, "What is a dinosaur?"

Chapter three looked at the Triassic. Early Triassic Utah, as preserved in the Moenkopi Formation, was mud flats and low coastal floodplains to the east and a sea to the west which shifted back and forth across the state several times. Though marine fossils are common, the scanty terrestrial vertebrate fossils are dominated by amphibian fossils and trackways. The more interesting Chinle Formation of the Late Triassic showed that the coastal plain has transformed into an interior basin surrounded by mountains, the basin dominated by river called the Chinle Trunk River that flowed northwest out of the basin toward the sea in western Nevada. Non-dinosaurs fossils include metoposaurs, phytosaurs, aetosaurs, dicynodonts, and rhynchosaurs, but dinosaurs have so far revealed their presence only by trackways (though their fossils, particularly the famous _Coelophysis_ , are found in nearby states).

Chapter four looked at the Early and Middle Jurassic, the author spending some time on the subject of Late Triassic extinctions of non-dinosaur reptiles. Much of this time Utah was quite arid, as two formations, the Wingate Sandstone and the Navajo Sandstone, indicate that vast ergs or "sand seas" dominated the region. Indeed the Navajo Sandstone erg covered 160,000 square miles and was larger than any modern Sahara erg. Owing to the poor fossil-forming qualities of these formations and their original arid, vertebrate-impoverished environments, fossils are rare but they are found. In Utah and in nearby states one can find tritylodonts (herbivorous mammal-like reptiles), _Dilophosaurus_ (a fearsome bipedal predator, though _Jurassic Park_ aside, there is no evidence it could spit poison and in fact was larger than portrayed in the movie), and _Massospondylus_, a prosauropod that apparently was adapted for arid and semiarid environments. Tracks abound in some areas, such as the Moab megatracksite, which contains literally millions of tracks over a 120 square-mile area.

Chapter five was titled "The Golden Age of Sauropods" and looked at the herbivores of the Morrison Formation, an enormous seasonally semiarid savanna of fern prairies and large alkaline lakes (a 300 mile-long lake could be found in southwestern Colorado at the time). Unlike previous formations, dinosaur fossils are no longer mostly fragmentary, as indeed some of the most impressive and complete specimens in the world come from this formation. Much is covered in this chapter, including evidence of migrating dinosaurs, the differences between the four different sauropod families, a possible ecological association between _Apatosaurus_ and _Stegosaurus_, the function of _Stegosaurus_ plates, and Morrison ornithopods like _Camptosaurus_ and _Dryosaurus_.

Chapter six examined the theropods of the Morrison, primarily _Allosaurus_, the state's signature fossil, the author examining its feeding strategies and the famous Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry (a site that has yielded at least 44 individual _Allosaurus_ as well as eight other genera), and what is known about _Ceratosaurus_, _Torvosaurus_, _Ornitholestes_, and _Marshosaurus_ (the latter may have been a very early dromaeosaur).

The seventh chapter looked at the Early Cretaceous. Western Utah was highland and mountain, eastern Utah was moist, low, coastal floodplains. Major dinosaurs of this formation include _Sauropelta_ (a nodosaur), _Polacanthus_ (another nodosaur), _Utahraptor_, and the 20-foot long sauropod _Pleurocoelus_ (similar to the Morrison's _Camarasaurus_ but much smaller than the "golden age" sauropods). DeCourten wrote that Early Cretaceous studies were just beginning and were important in understanding the huge faunal change-over from Jurassic times.

Chapter eight was on the Late Cretaceous, most of the dinosaur fossils from this time hailing from a narrow very moist coastal plain (during a time when much coal was formed) between mountains to the west and an interior sea to the east. Fauna has again changed, with the Early Cretaceous nodosaur-sauropod-dromaeosaur community being replaced by a hadrosaur-ceratopsian-ankylosaur-ornithomimid one.

Chapter nine looked at the latest Cretaceous, at the last dinosaurs and reasons for their extinction. Utah fossil-producing dinosaur country was at this time an elongated interior basin between mountain ranges. _Alamosaurus_, an animal that signaled the end of the "sauropod hiatus" (a lengthy period of time when sauropods were absent from North America) is a major fossil; apparently _Alamosaurus_ was a titanosaurid, a group that spread from South America to North America via a land connection that formed during the late Cretaceous. There is also _Torosaurus_, a ceratopsian not unlike the more familiar _Triceratops_ in appearance.

Chapter ten concluded with a look at paleontology and how the reader can become involved.

Dinosaurs of Utah is a fascinating book about life in the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods. I think it has great knowledge on different species of dinosaurs and other marine creatures of the Mesozoic era. You will agree when you read and understand what Frank Decourten writes about. The photos and drawings are also interesting.