Cretaceous Park New Jersey

Hadrosaurus

Cretaceous Park New Jersey? Our state is not the first one to come to mind when talking about dinosaurs. There is New Jersey’s official state dinosaur - Hadrosaurus foulkii - the first nearly complete dinosaur skeleton ever found in North America. It was discovered in 1858 in a marl pit in Haddonfield, NJ by William Parker Foulke, and it helped revolutionize scientific understanding of dinosaur posture because it suggested that some dinosaurs could walk upright. It lived about 70–100 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period.

We also have the first recognized Tyrannosaur, known as Dryptosaurus. Its name means “Tearing lizard” or “Slashing reptile.” It is also from the Late Cretaceous, around 67–66 million years ago. It grew up to 25 feet (7.5 meters) long and was carnivorous. It belongs to the Eutyrannosaurian theropod group, which was an early relative of Tyrannosaurus rex.

Dryptosaurus

It was first described by Edward Drinker Cope in 1866 as Laelaps aquilunguis, later renamed Dryptosaurus by rival paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh due to naming conflicts. It was one of the first theropods ever discovered in North America. The discovery was made in a marl pit near Barnsboro, NJ, making it a local legend in paleontology.

Marl is a type of sedimentary material that's rich in calcium carbonate, clay, and silt. It forms in freshwater or marine environments, often through the accumulation of microscopic organisms like algae or the breakdown of shells and skeletons of marine life, and is common in post-glacial lake beds, coastal plains, and marine deposits.

In Mantua Township (behind a shopping center!), paleontologists have uncovered one of the most remarkable fossil sites in the country. The Edelman Fossil Park & Museum at Rowan University has taken that site and built it into a destination for dinosaur enthusiasts and families alike. 

Dr. Kenneth Lacovara, a South Jersey native and world-renowned paleontologist, has traveled across the globe digging for dinosaurs, but his most astonishing finds came from the quarry near where he grew up. Over the last 18 years, more than 100,000 fossils from over 100 species have been unearthed at the Mantua site. The site officially opened to the public in March as the Jean & Ric Edelman Fossil Park & Museum, inviting visitors to dig for real fossils, tour exhibits, and learn how prehistoric history can shape the future. 

A local news report on the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum of Rowan University before it opened in March 2025.

Crossposted at One-Page Schoolhouse

Beyond Endangered: Fossils in New Jersey

I have been finding the occasional fossil in NJ since I was a kid, kicking around my local creeks. When a species goes beyond endangered, it becomes extinct, and that's what you are usually dealing with in fossil hunting.

One of the top spots in New Jersey for fossil hunting is  Big Brook Preserve in Colts Neck, Monmouth County. (88 Hillsdale Rd., Colts Neck, NJ 07722).

Fossil hunting is great for adults and fun to do with kids if they have some guidance. Check out this family outing.

You need to be prepared with some equipment and need to follow the regulations in many places. For example, at Big Brook, there are several rules and restrictions:

1. Groups of 15+ require a permit
2. The collection of fossils within the preserve is limited to those fossils found within the actual stream waterline. Fossil extraction is prohibited from the walls of streambed above the stream waterline. AKA: stick to the water and the gravel bars; no digging the banks
3. The use of equipment for the collection of fossils is restricted to trowels with a maximum blade of six inches, and small screens with an eighteen-inch-square maximum at all times
4. No person may harvest more than five fossils per day.

Big Brook identification page

The Fossil Guy's Guide to Big Brook

rockchasing.com/fossils-in-new-jersey/

To explore and learn more about New Jersey's fossils, two places to visit are the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton, and the Edelman Fossil Park and Museum in Mantua.

shark teeth

Shark's teeth are one of the most common fossil finds. 

Don't set your expectations too high. You are not going to find a dinosaur like the NJ State dinosaur, the Hadrosaurus foulkii. It is a type of hadrosaur, often called the “duck-billed” dinosaur because of its flat, wide mouth. They were plant-eaters that were about 25 feet long. Finding one in NJ was very special because it’s the first nearly complete dinosaur skeleton ever found. Prior to its discovery (in Haddonfield), scientists only had small bits and pieces of dinosaur fossils.

Field Station: Dinosaurs

Hadrosaurus

This past weekend was the opening day of Field Station: Dinosaurs, a 20-acre outdoor educational park filled with 31 animatronic dinosaurs, located next to Laurel Hill Park in Secaucus, NJ.

It is set up so that visitors walk an outdoor trail that looks like an expedition site and along the way come across moving, breathing and roaring dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are to scale.

Of course, New Jersey is not a new home for dinosaurs or paleontology. The park has some NJ natives including the Hadrosaurus (our state dinosaur) and the Dryptosaurus.

Our state once had many dig sites. There are still active digs including one in Gloucester County that still yields plant and animal fossils.

The park is a mix of science and theater. Guy Gsell, the park's president and chief executive producer, was previously the founding director of Discovery Times Square in Manhattan. The park has interactive workshops and games, such as game shows, dinosaur meet and greets, a fossil dig site, and interactive shows featuring a 15-foot animatronic T-Rex puppet.

Field Station: Dinosaurs is located at One Dinosaur Way, which connects to New Country Road in Secaucus. It is accessible via exit 15X on the NJ Turnpike, and within walking distance of the Secaucus NJ Transit station. Admission is $25 for adults and $20 for children ages 12 and younger, and senior citizens. Children younger than the age of two are admitted free.

From May 26-June 17, hours are: Sat & Sun from 10am - 5pm; Weekdays - school groups only. From June 20 to September 3, the Field Station is OPEN EVERY DAY, from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

For more information on the park, visit www.fieldstationdinosaurs.com

New Jersey's State Dinosaur

The duckbilled dinosaur, Hadrosaurus foulkii roamed the forests and swamps along the bays of New Jersey's ancient seacoast.

Today its bones are found in ancient marine deposits with fossil seashells.

It was about twenty-five feet long, probably weighed 7 to 8 tons and stood about 10 feet tall. Hadrosaurus probably stood on its hind feet when running, but used it front feet to support its head while grazing. Its abundant blunt teeth confirm that Hadrosaurus was a vegetarian, a peaceful plant eater that could chew tough-stemmed twigs and leaves. Hadrosaurus lived about 80 million years ago late in the Cretaceous Period.

Hadrosaurus is a famous dinosaur because it was the most complete dinosaur skeleton unearthed anywhere in the world when it was discovered and scientifically documented in 1858.


                       A video tour of the Academy exhibit

In 2008, 140 years after it became the world's first museum to display a mounted dinosaur skeleton, Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences mounted a new exhibit. called "Hadrosaurus foulkii, The Dinosaur That Changed The World,"  It features a completely new skeleton mount of the famed fossil discovered in 1858 in a Haddonfield marl pit in Camden County, New Jersey.

Hadrosaurus foulkii became the official State dinosaur of New Jersey in 1991.

Mosasaur fossil found in Mantua Township

http://www.oceansofkansas.com/Varner/varner.jpg

Well beyond "endangered" are dinosaurs. And dinosaur finds in New Jersey may be even more rare.

Mosasaurs (from Latin Mosa meaning the 'Meuse river', and Greek sauros meaning 'lizard') are large extinct marine lizards. The first fossil remains were discovered in a limestone quarry at Maastricht on the Meuse in 1764. Mosasaurs are now considered to be the closest relatives of snakes, and were varanoids closely related to terrestrial monitor lizards. They probably evolved from semi-aquatic aigialosaurs, which were more similar in appearance to modern-day monitor lizards, in the Early Cretaceous.

So, it's exciting that the assistant curator of natural history at the New Jersey State Museum has found one as part of a paleontological expedition working a site at Inversand [in Mantua] recently.

Although they have been undisturbed for 65 million years, Jason Schein is rushing to get his hands on the fossilized skeletons of sea-dwelling animals and dinosaurs from the depths of a marl pit here.

Schein’s fear is that, if he waits a day, the opportunity to excavate skeletons from the site may disappear forever.

Inversand’s manganese greensand pit in the township — the company has long asked that the exact location not be disclosed — is the last known site of its kind in South Jersey.

“In South Jersey in the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were dozens and dozens of these pits,” Schein explained as he took a break from the triple-digit heat on Thursday.

How do you think towns such as Marlton and Marlboro got their names, he asked.

The paleontologists who would dig in the pits hung out in Philadelphia, sharing finds and stories.

“Some of the most famous stories in the history of science got started here,” Schein observed.

Farmers had no use for the skeletons found in the pits.

“They originally dug it up as fertilizer,” he said of marl. Inversand markets the material that it digs from the pit here as a municipal and industrial water treatment.

Marl was also the right material to preserve the skeletons of what was trapped inside.

This week’s dig, financed with $1,500 from the Delaware Valley Paleontological Society and involving scientists from the state museum in Trenton, Drexel University and the Academy of Natural Sciences, has yielded “lots of good stuff.”

Wednesday, the team “took out of the ground the entire top shell of a big sea turtle.” The shell, Schein said, is “three feet across.”

More importantly, it is both “very well preserved” and “almost 100-percent complete.”

Thursday, the ground yielded the brain case of a mosasaur — a giant swimming komodo dragon.

“If there was ever a real life sea monster, this was it,” Schein suggested.

Sixty-five million years ago, South Jersey was a shallow sea home to fish, sharks, birds, sea turtles, crocodiles and mosasaurs.

The skeletons are headed first to Drexel and eventually to the state museum for study and possible display.

Such sites in the past have yielded the first substantially complete dinosaur skeleton — known as Hadrosaurus foukii. That skeleton was unearthed in Haddonfield and turned over to the Academy of Natural Sciences.


Mosasaur fossil found in Mantua Township marl pit | via NJ.com