New Jersey Museum Unlocks Day the Dinosaurs Died

Behind a Lowe's and Chick-fil-A in suburban New Jersey sits a window into Earth's most catastrophic day.

What paleontologist Ken Lacovara once dismissed as a convenient student practice site has become the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum, home to the world's best record of the hours after an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. The museum just opened its doors to the public.

Lacovara made his name discovering new dinosaur species in exotic locations like the Gobi Desert and Patagonia. But this unassuming quarry in Mantua Township proved to be his most important find.

Running through the excavation site is a sediment layer that tells an extinction story. It captures the days and even hours after the asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, triggering the planet's fifth mass extinction.

His team has recovered over 100,000 fossils representing more than 100 species from this single layer. They also found iridium, a metal common in asteroids but rare on Earth.

The evidence paints a vivid picture of that day. Within minutes of the asteroid hitting near the Yucatan Peninsula, a 10.3 magnitude earthquake rippled across North America. Temperatures spiked to "somewhere between toaster oven and pizza oven," Lacovara explains.

Small mammals burrowed underground to survive. Dinosaurs, after ruling Earth for 165 million years, had nowhere to hide and were functionally extinct within an hour.

A 130-foot tsunami then swept the coastline, carrying dinosaur carcasses out to sea where they sank to the ocean floor. That underwater graveyard became the fossil bed scientists study today.

Why This Inspires

The museum isn't just looking backward. Lacovara sees lessons for our present moment in the dinosaurs' fate.

All five previous mass extinctions resulted from climate crises, he notes. "We are now the asteroid of our age," he says. "But we don't have to be, and it's not too late to turn the tide."

The museum offers visitors climate action resources alongside fossil digs. Its motto captures this dual mission: "Discover the past, protect the future."

Families can now dig for fossils with their own hands in sediment layers above the extinction line. No other place combines a world-class museum with an active excavation site where the public can participate.

Lacovara hopes locals will discover the Cretaceous treasure beneath their feet and leave inspired to protect the world we have now.