Student’s 65-million-year-old extremely rare find
A college student with a slight obsession with dinosaurs has made the dig of a lifetime.
Harrison Duran, a biology student from Dakota was on a palaeontology dig in southwestern North Dakota in the United States, when he unearthed a partial Triceratops skull.
Harrison paired up with an expert excavator Michael Kjelland and together they underwent a two-week search at Hell Creek Formation - a site known for dinosaur fossils.
The duo were attempting to find plant fossils and on day four into their dig, were left shocked at their significant find.
"I can't quite express my excitement in that moment when we uncovered the skull," Mr Duran told his college website UC Merced, on Wednesday.
23-year-old Harrison found the fossil himself - it was turned upside down with its left horn partially exposed, and surrounded by fossils.
"I've been obsessed with dinosaurs since I was a kid, so it was a pretty big deal," Mr Duran said.
They named the dinosaur found as Alice - after the owner of the land.
“Alice was meticulously stabilised with glue, plastered up and removed from a location she called home for over 65 million years,” the Fossil Excavations website read.
The duo will now spend the next few months researching the rare fossil and preparing Alice for public showings.
"It's such a rare opportunity to showcase something like this, and I'd like to share it with the campus community," he said.
Alice’s location will be kept top secret to protect potential further finds.
"There have been people in the past who have stolen dinosaur bones," Professor Kjelland told CNN.