A nine-ton block of sandstone pulled out from a Utah mountain in late 2014 holds the biggest fossil pile of a giant predatory dinosaur known as the "Utahraptor".

Researchers unearthed six Utahraptor specimens. National Geographic said this dinosaur looks like a pumped-up version of the Velociraptors from the movie, Jurassic Park. This discovery validates the depiction of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park as clever, pack-hunting animals.

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Lead researcher and Utah state paleontologist James Kirkland excavated the remains of the six Utahraptors as part of a massive effort spanning more than a decade. The fossils include a 16-foot long adult, four juveniles and a baby about three feet long from snout to tail.

The team believed these raptors were about the size of a turkey and that adults were more heavily muscled.

The Utahraptor was the largest of a group of lightly-built carnivores called "dromaeosaurs" or swift lizards. Utahraptor has its trademark large sickle claw on each second toe and large eyes. The toe joints were specially enlarged so its massive claw could be raised upward and backward to avoid damage while running.

Kirkland's group received a tip from a geology student in 2001. The student thought it was a human arm bone he discovered among the early Cretaceous rocks in Utah.

Other than the Utahraptor fossils, researchers also found the remains of a beaked, bipedal herbivore called an "iguanodont", which may have been their prey.

"We believe it's going to be the first example of dinosaurs trapped in quicksand en masse in the fossil record," said Kirkland.

The fossils were transported to Salt Lake City's Department of Natural Resources with the help of heavy machinery. Reserchers will study if the block is representative of a pack of Utahraptors, or a group of individual predators that were trapped in the quicksand individually.

TagsUtah Dinosaur, Jurassic Park, Utahraptor, raptors, Velociraptor, Dinosaur Fossils, Dinosaur era, Cretaceous era