Dinosaur State Park and Arboretum

Dinosaur State Park and Arboretum is a state owned and operated natural history preserve occupying in the town of Rocky Hill, Connecticut. The state park protects one of the largest dinosaur track sites in North America. Its Jurassic-era sandstone-embedded fossil tracks date from about 200 million years ago.HistoryThe Rocky Hill dinosaur tracks were uncovered in 1966, adding to the extensive legacy of fossil discoveries made in the Connecticut Valley since the 19th century. A bulldozer operator noticed the tracks while excavating the site for a new state office building. The site opened as Dinosaur State Park in 1968, the same year its 7acre dinosaur trackway was memorialized as a Registered National Landmark.FeaturesGeodesic domeThe park's 55000sqft geodesic dome (see picture at right) encloses some 500 tracks while another 1,500 remain buried for preservation. The tracks are from the early Jurassic period and were made over 200 million years ago by a carnivorous dinosaur similar to Dilophosaurus. The tracks bear the name Eubrontes, the term for fossilized footprints invented by geologist Edward Hitchcock. The tracks range from 10 to 16in in length and are spaced 3.5 to 4.5ft apart.