Dinosaur Discovery Site

“This is the most significant dinosaur tracksite in western North America.”
Dr. James Kirkland, Utah State Paleontologist

The St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm is home to exceptionally well-preserved dinosaur tracks, some displaying skin impressions. These tracks, along with hundreds of fossil fish, plants, rare dinosaur remains, invertebrates traces and important sedimentary structures, show evidence that this site was produced along the western edge of a large, Early Jurassic (age between 195-198 million years ago) freshwater lake named Lake Dixie.

Other discoveries that make the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm unique include the largest and best preserved collection of dinosaur swim tracks, a rare sitting impression of a large meat-eating dinosaur, and the unusual association of tracks, traces and actual bones found in close proximity to each other.

Scelidosaurus: The British Dinosaur That Came to Utah

Since it was first discovered in 1851, only about a dozen, mostly incomplete specimens of this dinosaur had been found, but in 2000, the same year that the tracks were discovered at Johnson Farm, a virtually complete skeleton was discovered in England. Unlike most dinosaur bones that are found, this fossil's hundreds of armor plates and spikes are preserved in their life positions, providing extraordinary details about how this dinosaur looked. St. George is the only place anywhere in the Western Hemisphere that the 11-foot long Scelidosaurus replica has been on display, and it was able to come to the Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm because of a generous donation from local lawyers Virginius "Jinks" and Barbara Anne Dabney. Come see a truly unique specimen as well as the other remarkable fossils at the site!