Substation Quarry Excavation
Help Us Dig For Fossils
Help Us Dig
Dinosaur Discovery paleontologists and volunteers began excavating bone beds across the street from the existing Dinosaur Discovery Site in March 2025. There are two ways you can help us.
Volunteer
Become a volunteer and help find and catalog fossils at an active dig site!
Donate
Please support our efforts to discover, collect, protect, and interpret fossils found during our excavations.
Why Is This Dig Important?
RARE AND EXCITING FINDS
Paleontologists from the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site and various states, including Utah, Idaho, Colorado, and Texas, are beginning a new excavation into the long-buried rock layers that yielded the bones initially discovered at the site. These layers consist of sediment that settled at the bottom of Lake Whitmore and contain fossils of different types of fish as well as intriguing dinosaur bones.
These productive rock layers are part of a set of formations that geologists refer to as the Moenave Formation. The dinosaur bones found here are among the oldest known in Utah and are some of the very few of their age identified in North America
Making New Discoveries
“The potential for making new discoveries in these layers is very high. Finding remains of a new kind of dinosaur in these rocks would be a dream come true and really flesh out what we know about the early stages of dinosaur evolution.”
~ Andrew R.C. Milner, SGDS Curator and chief Paleontologist
Telling A Story of the American Southwest
““The importance of the SGDS cannot be understated. Its fossils tell a story unique in the prehistory of the American Southwest, and they are pivotal in understanding the beginning of the ‘Age of Dinosaurs’.”
~ Dr. Jim Kirkland, Utah Geological Survey
We Need Your Help!
This excavation site also has a collection of fossils from animals that lived in and around Lake Whitmore. It’s one of very few places anywhere in the world that preserves both bones of dead animals and traces made by live ones in the same location.
The clock is ticking on this dig because the City of St. George is scheduled to build a new electrical substation on the dig site. A large part of the substation construction will intersect the bone-bearing layers.
We need your help to preserve the fossils and Utah’s paleontological history!
Volunteer
We accept any help you can provide, but we are limited in the number of people allowed on the site. If you have prior excavation experience, you will be given priority.
We ask for a 30 hour minimum commitment of donated time after training. Proper training takes about one day (roughly eight hours).
Children under 14 are not allowed on site. Children must be accompanied by an adult or guardian (not an older sibling) at all times.
Please, be patient with response times (it can take several days), our team is small and doing the best we can!
Help Fund The Dig!
Thank You To Our Sponsors!
Tagg-N-Go
Quinn Allgood & Conner Atkin
We want to express our gratitude to Quinn Allgood, Conner Atkin, and the staff at Tagg-N-Go Car Wash!
Their generous contribution to the museum helps us preserve our region’s prehistoric heritage.
We appreciate your goodwill and being a leader in our community and the state of Utah.