This hydrosaurus, once a local, is among the beasts you’ll meet at New Jersey’s Edelman Fossil Park and Museum, founded by University of Delaware alumnus and world-famous explorer Kenneth Lacovara.

The day of the dinosaur

Article by Diane Stopyra Photos courtesy of the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum of Rowan University and G&A/Brett Beyer March 28, 2025

UD alumnus Kenneth Lacovara brings ancient beasts to life in world-class museum

A homicidal camel once chased Kenneth Lacovara onto a boulder in China’s Gobi Desert. (The animal ran around the base of the rock for a solid 45 minutes before petering out and giving up.) Call it an occupational hazard. A globally renowned paleontologist and University of Delaware alumnus, Lacovara has seen his share of adventure while excavating dinosaur bones around the globe: standoffs with sword-wielding tribesmen in Egypt, near falls from cliff faces in Argentina, more food poisoning than he can remember. But it’s the Blue Hen’s latest endeavor that is, perhaps, the greatest professional thrill. Lacovara has built from scratch a world-class institution where ancient beasts come to life. On March 29, the Edelman Fossil Park and Museum in Mantua, New Jersey, will open its doors to the public.

Blue Hen alumnus Ken Lacovara has unearthed some of the largest dinosaurs to walk the earth, including the 65-ton Dreadnoughtus, which appeared in the film "Jurassic World: Dominion."

“This is a totally different kind of rush,” said Lacovara, founding executive director of the museum and a guy who’s appeared in more than 20 documentaries. “The thought of what this will do for kids, for the community, for decades or even centuries to come — it’s more than a carpenter's son from Linwood, New Jersey, could ever expect.”

A modern-day Indiana Jones, Lacovara’s far-flung explorations have forever altered the paleontological landscape — in Patagonia, he earned global acclaim for uncovering the skeleton of 65-ton Dreadnoughtus, among the biggest dinosaurs ever excavated. But, when it comes to advancing his field, the scientist has also devoted much time to another type of exotic locale: New Jersey. (“People tend to think of Montana or Wyoming when they think of dinosaurs,” he said. “But we had a full bounty of them living right here.”) For the last 17 years, Lacovara has excavated a four-acre quarry in the small town of Mantua. Originally dug by a mining company to provide farmers with marl, a sandy green soil used as fertilizer, the site has also revealed the Mesozoic motherload. He and his team have so far uncovered more than 100,000 fossils representing over 100 extinct species from 66 million years ago — the moment just before the infamous asteroid struck.

“This has become the best window into this time anywhere in the world,” Lacovara said. “It’s a globally important deposit we have right here.”

In 2016, with the closing of the paleontologist-friendly mining company, a dreaded possibility loomed: This invaluable spot could be turned into a strip mall or other development. So Lacovara intervened. As founding dean of the School of Earth and Environment at Rowan University, he spearheaded this institution’s 2016 effort to acquire the quarry and surrounding land. Then, the work of building a fossil park and museum began. Master plans were drawn up, architects were hired (one of these firms, KSS, has also done work for UD) and funds for the $75 million project were raised. According to Ric Edelman, a major donor along with wife Jene, the final result is “mind blowing. What Ken has delivered is a world-class facility on par with the most fabulous museums you’ll find anywhere in the world.” Indeed, Smithsonian magazine named this one of the most anticipated museum openings of the year.

Setting foot in the Edelman Fossil Park and Museum of Rowan University means stepping back in time.

So what makes this place so special? Visitors to the 65-acre site (200,000 are anticipated annually) can dig for their own fossil in a designated area of the quarry, “and any kid or grandparent who isn’t afraid to get their hands dirty will make a legit discovery … literally something no human has seen before,” Lacovara said. The museum that overlooks this quarry is a 44,000-square-foot structure made largely of sustainable accoya wood, powered by clean energy from geothermal wells and — thanks to input from a regional paleobotanist — landscaped only with plants native to the area at the time of the asteroid strike. (If that detail impresses, check out the on-site cafe complete with mosquito macaroons — hat tip, Jurassic Park.)

Inside, visitors will watch scientists conserve and stabilize ancient fossils, and they’ll take part in a virtual reality experience that transports participants back to the Age of Dinosaurs. But the main attractions are life-size replicas of extinct creatures, works of terrifying art crafted over a three-year period by world-renowned paleoartist Gary Stabb.

This Cretaceous crocodile, based on a 25-foot-long skeleton found 100 yards away, would have carried his babies on his back.

“They show the gritty side of dinosaur life,” Lacovara said. “Dinosaurs were authentic beings that lived under their own auspices and had their own challenges and tragedies and triumphs — just like the rest of us.”

In one exhibit, visitors come face to face (or face to duck bill) with dinos that roamed the eastern seaboard of North America. (Contrary to popular belief, that bulky plant eater wasn’t a gentle giant: “It doesn’t want to eat you; it just wants to kill you.”) Another exhibit features aquatic creatures that swam through the actual site of the museum 66 millions years ago, including a 55-foot mosasaur with a nightmare-inducing jawline.

The museum offers a “pre-k to gray” program of lifelong learning.

When Lacovara moves through the space, his passion is palpable. “Say hello to your grandmother,” he said on a recent tour, pointing to a small, furry mammal called a synapsid. “This is the ancestor of everything with a uterus.” That hunk of tyrannosaurus rex poop? He coaxed folks at Canada’s Royal Saskatchewan Museum into 3-D printing it for him by being “very nice.”

The Blue Hen largely attributes his ability to curate such a herculean project to his time at UD, where he earned a doctorate degree from the geology department in 1997.

“When people leave here, they’re all set up to make positive change in the world,” said Kenneth Lacovara about his Hall of Extinction and Hope. As for those wall projections and electronic interactives? “We try to find moments that surprise and delight.”

“In addition to the technical knowledge, I learned how to take on a big, challenging task and get to the finish line,” he said, adding: “I never thought building a giant museum from scratch would be easy, but I’m honestly not that interested in easy.”

Still, there’s much work left to do. One of the museum’s goals is opening eyes to a difficult reality: If dinosaurs could perish, so, too, can another dominant group: homo sapiens. Planet Earth has faced five mass extinction events to date, and we’re now in the midst of a sixth. Because of climate change and other human-driven factors, species are dying off at an unprecedented rate.

Some of the fossils recently discovered in the Mantua quarry represent actual victims of the asteroid strike — and you can watch scientists preserve them.

“This isn’t about saving cute panda bears,” Lacovara said. “This is about protecting the organisms that make our lives on this planet possible. It would be very foolish not to tend to this little lifeboat on which we find ourselves.”

But it’s not all doom and gloom. In one hall, visitors tap into resources for taking action, and they hear inspiring stories from around the globe. One example comes from Johannes Fritz, a biologist in Europe who recognized the plight of the bald ibis species — because these birds came close to extinction, they have no wild ancestors to teach them about migration. So Fritz collects their eggs and cares for the babies until they trust him as a foster parent. Then he leads the birds across the sky. Every year, he flies an ultralight aircraft (read: a kite with a motor), and they follow him nearly 2,000 miles over the Alps from Austria to Spain.

Blue Hen graduate Kenneth Lacovara is a recipient of The Explorers Club Medal, the highest honor in exploration, previously awarded to Jane Goodall and Neil Armstrong. His TED talk has been viewed by over 5 million people, and his book, “Why Dinosaurs Matter,” is a winner of the Nautilus Book Prize.

Hope is baked into the museum’s mission.

“We want to give people this sense of awe and wonder and gratitude that they live on this incredible planet,” Lacovara said. “The chances of Earth are very slim, yet here it is. And the chance of any one particular species is even smaller. And within that species, the chance of you? Almost zero. But here you are. What are you going to do with this great fortune?”

As for Lacovara, there’s plenty more he’d like to achieve: places left to dig, books left to write and, luckily for dino fans, plans left to execute for the Edelman Fossil Park and Museum.

“This,” he said, the long neck of a sauropod rising above him, “is only phase one.”