Where to Dig Dinosaurs — Real Digs You Can Join

“Where can I dig dinosaurs?” is the question I’ve been asked more than any other, and a page by this name has been part of Bosco’s RockPile since the 1990s. This is its current edition — every program below checked and live.

I came to the quarries the same way you might: I answered an open call for volunteers. That led to summers at Shell, Wyoming, where our crew uncovered a Stegosaurus now displayed in London and a Camarasaurus now mounted in Japan — and before that, field seasons at Como Bluff with Dr. Robert Bakker. Public digs are how ordinary people get into real paleontology, and plenty of significant fossils have come out of volunteer hands.

What to expect — honestly

• It’s work. Sun, wind, and hours of patient scraping for every dramatic moment. As I told a reporter at the Camarasaurus dig: it’s not glamorous, but sticking a knife in the ground and hitting bone makes it worthwhile.
• The fossils stay with the science. On a legitimate dig, what you uncover is recorded, jacketed, and goes to the institution — not home in your pocket. That’s what separates paleontology from souvenir hunting, and it’s exactly what these programs teach well.
• Check the details before booking: minimum ages vary (some welcome kids from about 8, others are teens-and-up), seasons are short (mostly June–August), and day digs fill up months ahead.

Dinosaur digs in the United States

All links verified July 2026.

• Wyoming Dinosaur Center — Thermopolis, WY. The long-running “Dig for a Day” program in the Morrison Formation — the same rock unit our Shell digs worked.
• PaleoAdventures — Belle Fourche, SD. Commercial dig experiences in the Hell Creek Formation, late Cretaceous country.
• Judith River Dinosaur Institute — Montana. Multi-day field programs under a working paleontology team.
• Baisch’s Dinosaur Digs — Glendive, MT. Family day digs on a working ranch in the Hell Creek Formation.
• Great Plains Dinosaur Museum — Malta, MT. Junior paleontologist and field programs; an original link from this page’s first edition, still running.
• North Dakota Geological Survey public fossil digs — state-run digs open to the public, one of the best-value programs anywhere.
• Marmarth Research Foundation — Marmarth, ND. Volunteer excavation in the Hell Creek Formation.
• Mesalands Community College Dinosaur Museum — Tucumcari, NM. Museum-run field and lab experiences in Triassic rocks.

In Canada

• Dinosaur Provincial Park — Alberta. A UNESCO World Heritage Site; guided excavation and fossil-prospecting programs in some of the richest badlands on Earth.
• Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre — Morden, Manitoba. Dig programs in marine Cretaceous rocks — mosasaurs rather than dinosaurs, and no less exciting in the ground.

See dinosaurs in the ground without digging

Dinosaur National Monument (Utah/Colorado) keeps about 1,500 bones exposed in the quarry wall exactly where they lie — the best single place to understand what a bonebed looks like before you ever pick up an awl.

What a season looks like from the inside

If you want to know what actually happens on a dig — from first bone to plaster jacket to museum mount — the expedition pages here document it first-hand: the Stegosaurus that went to London, the Camarasaurus that went to Japan, and Como Bluff with Dr. Bakker.