When fifth-year University of Merced student Harrison Duran embarked on a summer paleontology dig in the Badlands of North Dakota, the biology major and the dig supervisor only expected to find plant fossils.
Duran, who is majoring in biology with an emphasis on ecology and evolutionary biology, crossed the nation to join “bone digger” and Mayville State University biology professor Michael Kjelland instead of hitting the beach or spending the summer playing video games. And while Kjelland has found some pretty interesting dino remains in the past, he hadn’t expected to unearth much more than some plants in the fascinating paleontology-friendly midwestern landscape this time around.
Luckily for Duran, though, the pair hit the mother lode just a week into their dig—when they unearthed a 65-million-year-old triceratops skull.
The massive skull took a full week to carefully excavate then cover with plaster in order to safely transport back to Kjelland’s vehicle and remove from the site.
Duran’s enchantment is apparent in the way he discussed the discovery. According to the student, it wasn’t just exciting to find the dino—it was equally thrilling to find the surrounding plant and ecosystem fossils to help them understand the massive creature’s environment a little better, too.
“It is wonderful that we found fossilized wood and tree leaves right around, and even under, the skull,” Duran said. “It gives us a more complete picture of the environment at the time.”
According to CBS, a triceratops skull is particularly susceptible to theft, so Kjelland has explained that this massive beauty—who was named Alice, after the landowner whose property she had been discovered on—doesn’t have immediate plans for public viewing. But eventually, that’s exactly what the biology professor hopes he'll be able to do with Alice; he hopes to make her publicly available to tour around the country.
“My vision is to have Alice rotate locations,” Kjelland said. “The goal is to use this find as an educational opportunity, not just reserve Alice in a private collection somewhere so only a handful of people can see her.”
For Duran? His hope is that Alice will get a chance to visit UC Merced at some point in the future so the students at his alma mater will be able to see his incredible discovery first-hand as well.
Scientists Unearth HUGE Adult Triceratops Skeleton From Denver Construction Site–68 Million Years Old
In Denver, Colorado, it’s not uncommon for construction workers to unearth reptilian fossils that are tens of millions of years old.A recent dinosaur excavation near a south Denver retirement community that began last May was reason for excitement even by Denver standards.
The scientists then unearthed a “horned” dinosaur, which they have now confirmed to be a triceratops, from the bedrock. The rock layer of the dig site dates back some 68 million years.
As the team began to carefully expose the find, it got pretty exciting; they began pulling huge fossils from the ground. The find consisted of a partial skeleton of an adult triceratops, and a pretty big one at that—definitely an exciting prospect for the team.
The excavation took several weeks—far longer than expected, and was still underway as late as last week—as they kept finding more and more bones. Among these were several ribs, an arm and a leg bone, as well as the ancient animal’s brain case.
“Finds like this, while relatively rare, are a great reminder of how dynamic our planet is and how much more there is out there to discover.”
Despite an underground aquifer and unrelenting rain, the team managed to package the very heavy bones in plaster-cast “jackets” for transportation with minimal disturbance to the specimens. The fossils are now in the capable hands of the museum staff.
Another horned lizard was found at a construction site in 2017. The specimen was a torosaurus—very similar to the triceratops except for one bone, said Natalie Toth, one of the scientists at the recent Highlands Ranch site.
During construction of Coors’ Field in the early 90s, Denver construction workers also stumbled on a 7-foot-long, 1,000-pound (approx. 454-kilogram) triceratops skull, as well as several other dinosaur skeletons.
For this reason, “Jurassic Park” was one of the first names for the stadium to be considered. The triceratops did make its appearance as the Rockies’ mascot Dinger.
