NARRATOR: Welcome to Moab,
Utah, surrounded by thousands
of square miles of
Mars-like Red Rock landscape
and the mighty Colorado River.
Surprisingly, Utah has yielded
fossils from more dinosaur
species than any other state.
And that fact alone makes
for a thrilling story, 150
million years in the making.
It involves the Civil War,
an incredible cargo airlift
mission, and the sight of
a dig that could unearth
a major discovery,
a missing piece
in the dinosaur family tree.
Let's take a deeper look at how
the fossil and a long lost sea
are linked.
In the early 1800s,
there was this patch
of desert in eastern Utah that
got some attention for being
an easy, natural crossing
point on the Colorado River,
along the old Spanish
Trail, good for trade.
A few key railroad lines
later, it was 1859,
and a US geological expedition
discovered this giant,
awesome fossil in the area.
But before they get unearth
it, the Civil War broke out.
Yep, and the fossil
was long forgotten,
for almost 150 years.
In 2014, National Geographic
explorer John Foster
picked up where the Civil War
and a few other scientists
in the '80s and '90s left off.
And his excavation
team began to find
the remnants of a Sauropod.
Huh?
Well, you've probably
heard of the Brontosaurus
or the Brachiosaurus.
They're Sauropods-- long
necks, long tails, four-legged,
eats leaves.
Turns out they have
a common ancestor.
And at least in North
America, it might
be this guy, Dystrophaeus.
But wait.
Why are there dinosaurs here?
Where does this
leaf-eating dinosaur
get his greens in the desert?
Well, this arid desert was
actually a long lost sea.
190 million years ago,
this place was an oasis.
Think spring break-- sandbars,
drinks with little umbrellas,
but like the dinosaur version.
Not a bad place for the
potentially oldest Sauropod
in North America to call home.
Relocating this dinosaur
vertebrate for research
is no joke.
Each piece weighs a
whopping 800 pounds
and has to be
covered in plaster.
And the team is on
the edge of a cliff.
It sounds like a job for--
the dinosaur fossil airlift
cargo helicopter service.
OK, that's actually
not really a thing.
But watch this.
[helicopter motor]
Pretty unbelievable.
What Foster and his team began
unearthing in this long lost
sea could be a
missing link in North
America's dinosaur family tree.
Welcome to the
family, Dystrophaeus.
But that's not the whole story.
For more, watch new
episodes of "Explore,"
on National Geographic.
