The Dinosaur plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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−1° on Nov. 17, 1969, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1894. Next is 0° in 1955.
Dinosaur’s center stands about 5,870 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,650 ft to 6,480 ft, a difference of 830 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Round Top Mountain, about 8,560 ft, 15 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mancos Shale (shale, sandstone), from the Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old.
The section below crosses 11 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone. Age: Late Triassic to Early Jurassic, 175 to 237 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Oligocene, 28 to 48 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone, claystone. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 5 smaller units along the line are not listed.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Dinosaur reaches the Gulf of California by way of Dripping Rock Creek, the White River, the Green River and the Colorado: about 1,330 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
Seldom reaches the sea. Dams and canals now take nearly all of the Colorado before its old delta in Mexico.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Dinosaur; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Dinosaur has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 3° in January. A normal year brings about 30 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 11 inches of water.
On November 14 Dinosaur normally reaches 49° and falls to 20°. The record high is 72°, in 1903; the record low 1°, in 1911. The most rain on this date, 0.32 in, fell in 1987.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1894 at Rangely 1 E, 16 miles southeast, 590 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
