The City of Green River, along with John Wesley Powell River History Museum are thrilled for the upcoming Green River Rocks set to take place on April 1 through April 3 at the museum.
“This event has been called Green River Rock & Mineral Festival in the past and we’ve been hosting it for a couple of years now. But we are changing the name now to Green River Rocks, to essentially cover all the different things we are doing in this area. It’s not just a gem show, it’s more of an educational event for rock hounders, for paleontologists, for people who just love the outdoors here in southern Utah,” said Event Representative, Summer Orr. The weekend event will feature vendor booths, talks from local experts, field trips to geological and paleontological sites near the area.
‘We have a Friday night lecture that starts off the event on April 1 with Dr. Julia Mchugh, who is a curator of paleontology at the Dinosaur Journey in Fruita, Colorado. She’s going to come down and talk about dinosaurs, and some really cool, gnarly discussion points in that. That’s going to be great for kids, and great for families I think, just really exciting information that she’ll bringing to us,” said Orr. They will also have on Saturday Allyson Mathis talking about geology and Steve Acreson speaking on rock art.
On Saturday the market will be open from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm with field trips scheduled to begin at 10:00 am and run throughout the afternoon. “We have guided field trips to different sites very close by like Fossil Point or Black Dragon Canyon. It really is a more hands-on, day to day, field trip event,” stated Orr. The Black Dragon Canyon tour is about 20 minutes from Green River and will feature petroglyphs.
“The website is still being updated but http://greenriverrocks.com/ and there’s going to be schedule pretty soon, live on the website, free to look at. It is a free event, so it’s entirely free. It does cost money to go into the museum, the John Wesley Powell Museum, which is where we all converge in the beginning on Friday. But to go on the field trips to go to the vendor market, it’s all free,” said Orr. For any local artisans and/or rock shops that would like to sale their items at the festival may obtain a vendor application at http://greenriverrocks.com/ Further information on the event can also be found on the same website.