Dr. Ken Lacovara traveled the whole world in pursuit of unearthing fossils and learning more about the life that existed before humans. His career has taken him to the deserts of Egypt, the mountains of Patagonia, Argentina, and the Himalayas, just to name a few. However, his most recent accomplishment, the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum, was discovered right in his backyard. 

“It reminds me of a TS Eliot line I’ll paraphrase…which is that we will not cease from exploration, and at the end of our travel, we will return to a place from which we began only to know the place for the first time,” said Lacovara. 

The anticipated Edelman Fossil Park & Museum, located in Mantua, NJ, has been a collaborative effort between Lacovara and Rowan University, specifically Rick and Jean Edelman and university president Ali Houshmand. The quarry has been a hotbed of discovery for years. During an excavation, Lacovara discovered a mass death event reported in the fossils. In 2011, Lacovara hosted a community dig day at the quarry in the hopes that at least 75 people would show. 1,600 people showed up to dig for fossils. 

As the former dean of Rowan’s School of Earth and Environment, Lacovara had an established relationship with the university. In 2015, Lacovara went to the board of trustees and urged them to take action. Jean Edelman was inspired by Lacovara and his dedication to the quarry and what it stood for. In 2016, Edelman’s donation was made and the Fossil Park came to life. 

“I didn’t know that there were fossils here, didn’t know anything about this quarry, and went home to Rick and said, ‘This is a project that we really need to get involved in,’” said Edelman.

The exhibits follow a narrative structure, providing a lighthearted yet educational story for kids to follow along with while adults read the scientific-laden descriptions of the depictions of dinosaurs. Lacovara specifically designed the flow of the exhibit this way so that adults could explain to kids what they read, while keeping little ones engaged yet informed. 

One of the biggest goals of the Fossil Park is to have people leave with a sense of action, and know that they have the power to make a difference. One of the ways they plan on implementing this is by providing guests with an explorer key, which links resources on climate change to a physical card and an online account. 

“We are arming people so that they can take personal action, because we would all hope for a better world, but hope without action is really desperation. Just sit home and just hope that things work out. No, we want to give people the tools so that they can leave here and take action to make the world a better place,” Lacovara said. 

Lacovara reflected on the importance of inspiring this type of change in people in this current political climate. 

“We know the planet’s warming. We know exactly why the planet’s warming. We know that species are going extinct at a rate that hasn’t been seen in 66 million years. These are just facts, and so when visitors come into the museum, we lay out the indisputable facts of what’s happening in the world,” said Lacovara. “You can make your own conclusions, but you know, if you really study the facts, you’re not going to make the same conclusion, which is that we have two existential crises and we’re out of time. We need to solve these really fast. And that is not a Republican thing or a democratic thing. That’s a human thing…We know how this stuff works and it affects everybody. Doesn’t matter what your political persuasion is.”

Although Lacovara’s studies have taken him all over the world and he has made strides in his field, at his core he is still a dinosaur-obsessed little kid. Like all dino fanatic kids, they have a favorite one. Lacovara’s happens to be one he discovered. 

“I discovered and had been working on for almost 20 years a dinosaur that I named Dreadnoughtus. I discovered it in southernmost Patagonia. It’s currently the most massive dinosaur for which we can calculate a weight. It was in the last Jurassic World movie, Mattel has made a toy out of it…Dreadnoughtus is kind of a part of the family,” said Lacovara.

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