Dinosaur State Park
'Dinosaur State Park'website
Arboretum and Exhibit Center

Dinosaur State Park
'Dinosaur State Park'website
A path through the meadow

Dinosaur State Park
'Dinosaur State Park'website
A bench to rest upon

Dinosaur State Park
'Dinosaur State Park' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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Inside the dome is this depiction of how it looked millions of years ago.

Dinosaur State Park
'Dinosaur State Park' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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The dome houses more then 500 dinosaurs tracks made during the Jurassic Period 200 million years ago.

Dinosaur State Park
'Dinosaur State Park' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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Inside the dome, artist William Sillin created this mural depicting the Triassic period.

Dinosaur State Park
'Dinosaur State Park' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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Life size model of a dinosaur inside the dome.

Dinosaur State Park
'Dinosaur State Park' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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The geodesic dome houses a life size model of dilopasaurus, a dinosaur which lived about 201 to 189 million years ago, during the early Jurassic period.

Dinosaur State Park
'Plaster Casting' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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There is an outside area where you can make your own plaster castings of real dinosaur footprints. Fun for the whole family with the benefit of taking home a print of a long extinct species.

Dinosaur State Park
'A Lost World' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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The Caption reads In Connecticut Valley, one has to only dig a few feet below the surface to discover a lost world - a sub-tropical place with beautiful lakes, forests, and remarkable animals a world with volcanic eruptions and violent earthquakes.
Each new excavation in the Valleys sandstone and shales has the potential for great discovery - like this amazing display of 200-million-year-old dinosaur tracks.

Dinosaur State Park
'Tracks Entwined' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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Dinosaur tracks heading in all directions.

Dinosaur State Park
'Unusual Tracks' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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The plaque reads
In 1980, vertebrate paleontologist Walter Coombs studied some unusual tracks on this rock layer. The longer middle toes made circular impressions and the two side toes left long claw marks. A little mud was mounded behind each toe impression. He concluded that these tracks were made by the tips of the toes of swimming carnivorous dinosaurs. This was the first such evidence ever found.

Dinosaur State Park
'Same Rock' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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This is a rock that was split apart and reveals the foot that made the print.

Dinosaur State Park
'Over 1,500 Prints' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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This picture represents the vastness of dinosaur footprints in the area. The ones not preserved under the Dome were buried for future excavations.

Dinosaur State Park
'Fish Fossils' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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Various fish fossils with explanation.

Dinosaur State Park
'Dinosaur Eggs' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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On display in the classroom are two fossilized dinosaur eggs.

Dinosaur State Park
'The Classroom' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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Pictured here is the Environmental Education Coordinator for this complex. She holds classes in this room encompassing outdoor recreation and natural resources.

Dinosaur State Park
'The Trackway' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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There is an interactive plaque with three different buttons that light up the straight trail of a single dinosaur. Here is a photograph that shows how they are lite up.

Dinosaur State Park
'Preserving a Natural Landmark' © all photos copyright Gary Jordan
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Plaque reads In 1966 dinosaur tracks were discovered here and 1,500 of them were exposed. They were carefully covered over in 1976 to prevent damage from freezing and thawing. The trackway will be re-exposed when a protective structure can be built over it.
Four consecutive posts mark the corners of the buried trackway.

Dinosaur State Park
'Adventures on the boardwalk' © c Angela Hansen Photography
website
A boardwalk provides year-round interest and educational opportunities, even when the museum is closed

If you like dinosaurs, you'll love our 200 million-year-old fossil trackway, interactive exhibits and the chance to cast your own dinosaur footprint to take home.
The Connecticut Valley has a long history of fossil track discoveries. Outstanding specimens uncovered in 19th century brownstone quarries found their way into museums throughout the world. A new chapter in the history of such discoveries was written in 1966 when hundreds of tracks were exposed in Rocky Hill. This remarkable site became Dinosaur State Park.