As kids, we all likely aspired to be something totally unrealistic. A superhero. A princess. A Tyrannosaurus Rex. Despite being told we could never grow up to be these things, most of us still clung to the hope that maybe one day we could be (well, maybe not a T-Rex). For some, these childhood aspirations grow to fuel their everyday lives.
For one California college student, biology had become the focus of his career, though one long-held passion from his childhood still lingered in the back of his mind. This passion, however, would soon resurface, as after making an incredible discovery in the badlands of Montana, the young man could finally say that he’d made his lifelong dream come true.
Spread across Montana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming, the Hell Creek Formation is the stuff of a paleontologist’s dream. Composed of mudstones, clay, and sandstones, this deposit is believed to have originated over 65 million years ago.
Yet age isn’t the Hell Creek Formation’s most noteworthy claim — it’s what can be found there that truly makes the deposit special. A treasure trove of fossils have been unearthed over the years, including those of some of the fiercest creatures of all time.
The first documented remains of a Tyrannosaurus Rex were actually discovered at Hell Creek by famed paleontologist Barnum “Mr. Bones” Brown. Since then, the Hell Creek Formation has become a world-renown hotspot for fossil hunters.
Paleontologists have dug up everything from dinosaur claws to crocodile teeth to even fossilized salamanders in this deposit, so it only made sense for college student Harrison Duran to make the Hell Creek Formation the site of his excavation in 2019.
A fifth-year biology student at the University of California, Merced, Duran had dreamed of exploring Hell Creek ever since childhood. Yet Duran knew he couldn’t just wander into the Montana badlands and start digging — he needed a team.
That’s where Michael Kjelland came in. A fellow fossil hunter and professor at North Dakota’s Maryville State University, Kjelland and Duran met at a conference and immediately bonded over their love of dinosaurs.
Kjelland seemed the perfect partner for Duran’s expedition, as he was familiar with Hell Creek Formation and had unearthed a handful of fossils there in expeditions passed. However, he’d never visited the site Duran intended to explore, making this a first-time experience for both of them.
In June 2019, the men arrived in Montana with pickaxes in hand and fossils on the brain. There was no telling what they’d find — if anything at all — but for Duran and Kjelland, that was all part of the fun.
The first three days of digging yielded only dirt for the hopeful fossil hunters, though on the fourth day, they struck something that most certainly wasn’t rock. After clearing away the rubble, Duran and Kjelland could hardly believe what they’d found.
Nestled upside down in the dirt was a fossilized skull, the base of its left horn partially exposed. The men scrambled to clear the remaining dirt, and when all was said and done, Duran and Kjelland were left face to face with a Triceratops!
“I can’t quite express my excitement in that moment when we uncovered the skull,” Duran recounted in a UC Merced newsletter. “I’ve been obsessed with dinosaurs since I was a kid, so it was a pretty big deal.”
What’s more, the skull was discovered in the presence of various plant fossils from the Cretaceous era. This was a huge find, as these remains allowed the team a better idea of the circumstances surrounding the dinosaur’s death.
“It is wonderful that we found fossilized wood and tree leaves right around, and even under, the skull,” said Duran. “It gives us a more complete picture of the environment at the time.”
The men were ecstatic over their discovery of the dinosaur, whom they dubbed “Alice” after the owner of the property on which they’d been digging. Yet now came time for the hard part: getting the fossil out of the ground.
“It took a full week to excavate Alice, whose fragile skull was meticulously stabilized with a specialized glue to solidify the fractured, mineralized bones, before an accelerant was applied to bond the structures,” UC Merced reported in their release.
Once they’d freed her from the dirt, Duran and Kjelland coated Alice in foil and plaster in preparation of transport. They finished off by wrapping the entire skull in memory foam, ensuring that Alice’s journey from the Hell Creek Formation would go off without a hitch.
Following their discovery, Duran and Kjelland founded Fossil Excavators, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to discovering and further educating people about fossils. The foundation will also conduct further research on Alice in the hope of one day putting her on display.
“It would be amazing for UC Merced to be able to display Alice on campus,” said Duran. “It’s such a rare opportunity to showcase something like this, and I’d like to share it with the campus community.”
Duran and Kjelland plan on returning to the dig site, though neither of them will spill the beans on the exact location. So if you’re looking to dig up the rest of ‘ol Alice, you might just have to pick up a shovel and go find her for yourself.
