The opening of a $73 million dinosaur fossil park and museum has been rescheduled for fall.
Officials at the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum of Rowan University were hoping for an opening last month, according to the benefactor and school alumnus who has contributed more than a third of the cost for the 65-acre facility in Mantua, Gloucester County.
“We’re disappointed that it’s taking longer than we had anticipated to finish the project,” said Ric Edelman, who, along with his wife, Jean, donated more than $25 million to the development. “But we are very much looking forward to the grand opening. And we’re hoping that it will be this fall.”
Edelman said the wait will be worth it.
“The facility is going to be world class,” he said. “The construction quality is outstanding. The exhibits are astonishing and everyone’s going to love it.”
One of the museum’s planned exhibits include a recreated Dryptosaurus, the first discovered tyrannosaur, which was found a mile from the fossil park site in 1866, and a 53-foot mosasaur, like one discovered at the fossil park site.
The park is on the site of a former industrial sand pit. Researchers have already turned up a fossil of the largest prehistoric crocodile ever found, Rowan said. Parts of New Jersey ware once underwater on prehistoric Earth and the fossils on site are buried in marl sand as opposed to being encased in rock like researchers finds in other parts of the country.
A rendering of the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum of Rowan University.
Just a few hundred square yards of the 65-acre site have been fully excavated but have still yielded more than 50,000 cataloged marine and terrestrial fossils, from reptilian mosasaurs to sea turtles, sharks, bony fish, coral and clams, the university said.
Visitors to the park and museum will be able to dig for fossils and keep many of their finds as souvenirs. Some of the discoveries, however, will be kept for further research.
“We are very excited about the fossil park and the visitor experience is going to be first class,” Edelman said this week. “Our enthusiasm remains 100% and we are looking forward to getting the park and the visitor’s center open.”
The 44,000-square-foot museum will sit above a former marl quarry.
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Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com.