Since 2000, the Natural History Museum of Utah (UMNH) and the Bureau of Land Management have been conducting paleontological surveys of the Kaiparowits Formation at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah.
This national monument was established in 1996 in part for the preservation and study of its fossils, and the surveys there have yielded a wide array of unique dinosaur fossils.
Field crews from other institutions have also participated, and the collaborative effort has been called the Kaiparowits Basin Project.
Among the discoveries made were three new ceratopsian (horned dinosaur) taxa, one of which was identified from two localities (UMNH Locality VP 890 and 951) discovered by volunteer field crew member Scott Richardson during the field seasons of 2006 and 2007.
It was preliminarily referred to as "Kaiparowits new taxon A" and identified as a chasmosaurine ceratopsid in a 2010 symposium book about ceratopsians.
Excavated fossils were airlifted by helicopter to the UMNH, where the blocks were prepared by volunteers with pneumatic air scribes and needles and subsequently reassembled.

In 2010, paleontologist Scott D. Sampson and colleagues also named the new genus and species Kosmoceratops richardsoni, specimen UMNH VP 17000 (from Locality VP 890) being the holotype.
The generic name is derived from the Ancient Greek kosmos, which means "ornamented", and ceratops, which means "horned face".
The specific name honors Richardson, who found the holotype and many other fossils at Grand Staircase-Escalante.
The full name can be translated as "ornate horned face of Richardson".
The holotype includes a nearly complete adult skull that is missing the predentary bone (the frontmost bone of the lower jaw) and a small part of the left side of the face and neck frill (parts of the jugal, squamosal, and parietal bones), and the snout is bent to the right due to postmortem (after death) distortion.
A considerable portion of the axial skeleton (such as vertebrae and ribs) was found associated with the skull, as well as part of the pelvic girdle and a limb.
45 percent of the postcranial skeleton was thought to be preserved, most of which was still under preparation by 2010.
Assigned specimens include UMNH VP 16878, a disarticulated skull of a subadult (between juvenile and adult) about half the size of the adult, missing the premaxilla, rostral, and predentary bones, and specimen UMNH VP 21339, a disarticulated subadult or adult.
In all, four specimens were reportedly found.

The describers of Kosmoceratops named the new chasmosaurine genera Utahceratops (also from the Kaiparowits Formation) and Vagaceratops (from the Dinosaur Park Formation, whose sole species, C. irvinensis, was formerly placed in Chasmosaurus) in the same article.
These genera, which were considered unusual compared to typical members of their group, were part of a spate of ceratopsian discoveries in the early 21st century, when many new taxa were named (a 2013 study stated that half of all valid genera were named since 2003, and the decade has been called a "ceratopsid renaissance").
The main focus of the article by Sampson and colleagues was how these three ceratopsian genera provided new evidence for reconstructing the paleobiogeography of their time and place.
In a 2010 press release announcing the study, Sampson described Kosmoceratops as "one of the most amazing animals known, with a huge skull decorated with an assortment of bony bells and whistles", and considered Grand Staircase-Escalante "one of the country's last great, largely unexplored dinosaur boneyards".

In 2017, the US government announced plans to shrink the Grand Staircase-Escalante (to little over half its size) and Bears Ears monuments to enable coal mining and other energy development on the land, which was the largest reduction of US national monuments in history.
Sampson, who had overseen much of the early research at the former monument, expressed fear that such a move would threaten further discoveries.
Media outlets stressed the importance of the area's fossil disc
Since 2000, the Natural History Museum of Utah (UMNH) and the Bureau of Land Management have been conducting paleontological surveys of the Kaiparowits Formation at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. This national monument was established in 1996 in part for the preservation and study of its fossils, and the surveys there have yielded a wide array of unique dinosaur fossils. Field crews from other institutions have also participated, and the collaborative effort has been called the Kaiparowits Basin Project. Among the discoveries made were three new ceratopsian (horned dinosaur) taxa, one of which was identified from two localities (UMNH Locality VP 890 and 951) discovered by volunteer field crew member Scott Richardson during the field seasons of 2006 and 2007. It was preliminarily referred to as "Kaiparowits new taxon A" and identified as a chasmosaurine ceratopsid in a 2010 symposium book about ceratopsians. Excavated fossils were airlifted by helicopter to the UMNH, where the blocks were prepared by volunteers with pneumatic air scribes and needles and subsequently reassembled.
In 2010, paleontologist Scott D. Sampson and colleagues also named the new genus and species Kosmoceratops richardsoni, specimen UMNH VP 17000 (from Locality VP 890) being the holotype. The generic name is derived from the Ancient Greek kosmos, which means "ornamented", and ceratops, which means "horned face". The specific name honors Richardson, who found the holotype and many other fossils at Grand Staircase-Escalante. The full name can be translated as "ornate horned face of Richardson". The holotype includes a nearly complete adult skull that is missing the predentary bone (the frontmost bone of the lower jaw) and a small part of the left side of the face and neck frill (parts of the jugal, squamosal, and parietal bones), and the snout is bent to the right due to postmortem (after death) distortion. A considerable portion of the axial skeleton (such as vertebrae and ribs) was found associated with the skull, as well as part of the pelvic girdle and a limb. 45 percent of the postcranial skeleton was thought to be preserved, most of which was still under preparation by 2010. Assigned specimens include UMNH VP 16878, a disarticulated skull of a subadult (between juvenile and adult) about half the size of the adult, missing the premaxilla, rostral, and predentary bones, and specimen UMNH VP 21339, a disarticulated subadult or adult. In all, four specimens were reportedly found.
The describers of Kosmoceratops named the new chasmosaurine genera Utahceratops (also from the Kaiparowits Formation) and Vagaceratops (from the Dinosaur Park Formation, whose sole species, C. irvinensis, was formerly placed in Chasmosaurus) in the same article. These genera, which were considered unusual compared to typical members of their group, were part of a spate of ceratopsian discoveries in the early 21st century, when many new taxa were named (a 2013 study stated that half of all valid genera were named since 2003, and the decade has been called a "ceratopsid renaissance"). The main focus of the article by Sampson and colleagues was how these three ceratopsian genera provided new evidence for reconstructing the paleobiogeography of their time and place. In a 2010 press release announcing the study, Sampson described Kosmoceratops as "one of the most amazing animals known, with a huge skull decorated with an assortment of bony bells and whistles", and considered Grand Staircase-Escalante "one of the country's last great, largely unexplored dinosaur boneyards".
In 2017, the US government announced plans to shrink the Grand Staircase-Escalante (to little over half its size) and Bears Ears monuments to enable coal mining and other energy development on the land, which was the largest reduction of US national monuments in history. Sampson, who had overseen much of the early research at the former monument, expressed fear that such a move would threaten further discoveries. Media outlets stressed the importance of the area's fossil disc
Kosmoceratops