From high above an active research site and fossil quarry, The Jean & Ric Edelman Fossil Park & Museum of Rowan University, the newest museum in America – and the only one of its kind anywhere – will examine the planet’s past as well as looking into its precarious present and future.

The $75 million structure in Mantua Township, New Jersey, will be a place of research and exploration and is expected to become an international magnet to explorers of all ages when it opens in autumn of 2024.

Above: The Jean & Ric Edelman Fossil Park and Museum, Image courtesy of Rowan University

In addition to a visitor museum, the park will be a place where academic research will continue into the world’s fifth mass extinction, when an asteroid struck Earth 65 million years ago, killing off the dinosaurs and most other life, as well as exploration into what scientists call the sixth mass extinction, the human-caused climate and biodiversity crises that are now underway.

Founded by palaeontologist Dr. Kenneth Lacovara and supported by Rowan University alumni Jean and Ric Edelman, the 44,000 square-foot museum and grounds will feature:

• A groundbreaking free-roaming VR experience
• Hall of Extinction & Hope, delving into the dinosaurs’ demise and its relevance to today’s climate and biodiversity crises
• Interactive exhibits
• Opportunities to dig for fossils in the fossil quarry
• Paleo sculptures by world-renowned prehistoric artist Gary Staab
• A 120-seat, stadium style theatre
• A Cretaceous Garden providing visitors a sense of what the landscape of the period would have been like
• Critter Cove featuring live animals, including a saltwater touch tank
• Playground featuring a pterosaur with 45-foot wingspan
• Natural trails, and more.

The park and museum will be sustainable and eco-friendly. Featuring geothermal, water-source heat pump heating and cooling systems, as well as a photovoltaic solar field, the museum will be New Jersey’s largest public net zero facility. 100% of the energy used by the museum will come from a combination of green energy available in New Jersey’s power grid and renewable energy produced on-site. No fossil fuels will be combusted for museum operations and no greenhouse gasses will be released into the atmosphere. In addition, the surrounding grounds will restore plant and animal habitat and other key landscape features.

For more information:
https://www.edelmanfossilparkmuseum.org/
https://www.rowan.edu/fossils/

To start planning a New Jersey holiday, visit www.visitnj.org

ENDS

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