April Program – Andrew Milner – Preliminary report of tritylodontid bonebeds in the Lower Jurassic Kayenta-Navajo Transition (Glen Canyon Group) at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah

The Lake Powell shorelines in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area expose Permian through Jurassic redbeds rich in fossil resources, many of which have been the focus of inventories spanning more than three decades. The lake level fluctuations provide the opportunity to document many fossil sites. In March 2023, a bonebed was discovered containing disarticulated but associated tritylodontid cynodonts in the Lower Jurassic Navajo Sandstone. An emergency recovery took place in April 2023 that resulted in the discovery of articulated skeletons at the first site, and a second, older bonebed nearby in the uppermost Kayenta Formation.

Andrew Milner is the site paleontologist and curator at the St. George Discovery site at Johnson Farm, in St. George, Utah, where he works with all scientific aspects of the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm, dealing with paleontology and geology. Andrew has been working there since October 2001. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers on a wide variety of subjects, but most of his work deals with the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic of the American Southwest, especially tracks and traces.

In March, 2003, Andrew discovered early Jurassic tritylodontid bonebeds within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area that he claims is one of the most significant discovery he has ever made.

Born in England, Milner moved to Quebec in eastern Canada in 1971, getting his Canadian citizenship in 1987. He then moved to Utah in 1997.