A 5th year California college student majoring in biology just found something amazingly rare and extraordinarily special.


During a trip to North Dakota's badlands, the University of California, Merced student uncovered a 65-million-year-old fossil of a partial Triceratops skull among plant fossils from the Cretaceous period.


Harrison Duran, had this to day in his school’s press release.


“I can’t quite express my excitement in the moment when we uncovered the skull,” “I’ve been obsessed with dinosaurs since I was a kid, so it was a pretty big deal.”


Harrison Duran as a child.


An article from USA Today reported that the Dino skull was found in the Hell's Creek formation, where dinosaurs roamed anywhere from 100.5 to 23 million years ago.


It took a full week to excavate the bones (named Alice after the land owner), and a local cattle rancher then helped the two men extract the skull. The fragile skull had to be stabilized with a special type of glue before it was wrapped in a memory foam mattress and transported to Kjelland's lab.


Dr. Grant did it first.



The professor hopes the fossil can one day be put on display for others to observe and enjoy. “The goal is to use this find as an educational opportunity, not just reserve Alice in a private collection somewhere so only a handful of people can see her," Kjelland said.


The dino-digging-duo is not sharing the exact location of thier dig sites, but they believe there are more bones to be found there. They say they plan to conduct more research and to prepare the dinosaur for display.