Exhibit to feature Cretaceous-era dinosaur

A new exhibit featuring a dinosaur from the Cretaceous era in Utah is slated to open next week at the Museum of the San Rafael, Castle Dale.

A cast of the skeleton of Animantarx ramaljonesi — named after its discoverer, Ramal Jones of Castle Dale — will be featured in a display backed by a mural showing what the area looked like 97 million years ago, when the dinosaur roamed what is now the San Rafael Swell. The mural was painted by Jeff Oviatt, an artist from Cleveland, Emery County.

Both the mural and a recreation of the Animantarx are to be unveiled on Thursday, during a session from 6-8 p.m. The museum is located at 99 N. 100 East, Castle Dale, Emery County.

"It's the full cast of the dinosaur that Ramal found five miles out of Castle Dale," said Margaret Keller, the museum director. Looking like a giant, boxy lizard studded with sharp spikes, the creature was about three feet high and 11 feet long.

During the exhibit opening, Ramal and Oviatt will both speak.

Oviatt "did a lot of research into the plant life back then," Keller said. Along with the dinosaur cast and mural, the museum will show the fossilized trunk of fern tree from that era, on loan from the University of Utah.

Jones will show slides of the excavation, in the early 1990s, at the Carole Site, named after his wife. The dinosaur was the first to be found strictly by remote sensing, as Jones used a radiation detector that he invented to locate its buried bones. The fossilized bones are mildly radioactive.

Another new dinosaur from the same excavation is named after his wife. It is Eolambia Carolejonesi, a duckbill dinosaur.

"It's going to be a really nice addition to the paleontology room, because it's more of a full display," Keller said. She is especially pleased that this is a local dinosaur.

"My dream is finally coming to a head," said Jones, who is a member of the museum board of directors.

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