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Utah family finds dinosaur bones in desert

Posted at 10:29 PM, Jun 10, 2013
and last updated 2013-06-11 00:29:52-04

EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah -- An Eagle Mountain family made an enormous, and ancient, discovery over the weekend when they went searching for fossils and dinosaur bones.

The Watt family was attending a family reunion near the San Rafael Desert, and when they left to look for dinosaur remains they found them.

Dr. Jim Kirkland is Utah’s state paleontologist, and he said the family’s decision to call experts before digging too deeply was the right one.

"They stopped when they needed to stop,” he said. “Very often, people keep digging and end up destroying what they're uncovering, and that's very easy to do."

Tim Watt said they were cautious when they realized what they’d found.

"We got it to a point where we're just afraid to expose anymore of it, because it's getting kind of fragile,” he said.

Kirkland said he thinks the bones are from the Jurassic Morrison Formation. He said the next step is determining the owner of the land the dinosaur bones are on.

Members of the Watt family said they hope to find out what kind of dinosaur they found by this weekend.