If you are a dinosaur devotee – and who isn’t awed by these epic creatures – the Edelman Fossil Park in New Jersey has one of the most tempting proposals you can imagine. It is located on the dinosaur-rich coast of the eastern United States, near where the first complete Hadrosaurus skeleton was found in 1858.
The beautiful, net-zero museum designed by Ennead, is built atop a former quarry, where local people and students from Rowan University have busily been fossil-digging for two decades. But what is truly amazing is that Dr Ken Lacovara, TED Talk veteran and leading palaeontologist (below), has amassed evidence that the bone bed buried at Edelman captures the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods.
That means visitors to the new attraction at Edelman Fossil Park are exploring the very moment of the mass extinction event 66 million years ago, which led to the demise of so many dinosaurs and the unlikely rise of human beings. It’s a pivotal moment in Earth’s history, and the museum reveals its significance for our past, as well as our future.
The exhibition design team at the US company Gallagher & Co got in touch with me to work with Ken Lacovara on the text for the museum’s galleries. These spaces are Dinosaur Coast, which reveals the history of palaeontology of southern New Jersey, with life-sized models of dinosaur species once common in the area scrapping with each other. Then comes Monstrous Seas with fossils and models of ancient marine life, including the 55-foot Mosasaur discovered in the quarry outside. Finally there is Extinction and Hope which shines a spotlight on the climate crisis and the ongoing threat of another massive ecological disaster, this time caused by human beings, rather than a wayward asteroid.
The writing took place across 2021 and 2022 with meetings, discussions and long-distance editing by the Gallagher team, trying to capture in words the enormity of what took place, and the vital action we must take to avoid a similar fate to the dinosaurs. Ken is a formidable expert on his subject, with a vision to make the world a better place through enthusiastic commitment to education and progress. He also took the first meeting while sitting at his jazz drumkit.
100,000 fossils, representing 100 species, have already emerged from excavations at Edelman, and the scientific process continues to classify and understand them. The museum opened on 29 March 2025 and I hope to get across to see it before long. I will be joining visitors who can see scientists investigating the finds, explore the museum’s unique galleries, dig for their own fossils in the quarry, or play in a palaeontology-themed adventure playground in the gardens – all the while, understanding more about our planet and how to care for it.
Many thanks for images to Dezeen, Buro Happold, Ennead, and Edelman Fossil Park, and to my main contact on the project, Natalie Tschechaniuk.
