A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: volunteer to help bring a dinosaur to life at UND!
No prior experience or tools are necessary, and you do not need to be affiliated with UND to participate — all are welcome!
The Harold Hamm School of Geology & Geological Engineering is excited to invite students, faculty/staff, the Greater Grand Forks community and beyond to help with the important process of cleaning and stabilizing the bones of a dinosaur on UND campus.
The main project is to clean and stabilize the bones of a duck-billed dinosaur called Edmontosaurus, which Dr. Paul Ullmann and Dr. Kristyn Voegele‘s research team brought back from Montana. They also have a portion of a Triceratops frill (the big sheet of bone that extends off the back of the head) that needs to be prepared, giving us two dinosaur species to work on!
Please read before registering
- For logistical and safety reasons, the volunteer spots are limited to only 5 volunteers in each two-hour timeslot each Wednesday and Friday. Signup is first-come first-served, but to provide your friends and family equal opportunities to help out, please only sign up for dates/volunteer slots which you are certain you can make. If you can no longer make it to a timeslot you signed up for, please cancel your signup to free that spot so someone else can fill it. One of our goals is to give everyone who wants to help out a chance to do so!
- We will be working in the North Dakota Geological Survey (NDGS)’s Core Library, which is technically not part of UND’s campus. Therefore, please enter the south-facing door of Leonard Hall (the home of UND Geology and Paleontology, at 81 Cornell Street in Grand Forks), then head up the stairs and meet up in the glass skywalk over Campus Drive which connects Leonard Hall to the NDGS Core Library. This is where either Dr. Ullmann, Dr. Voedele, or their graduate students Skylor and Brian will meet you to let you into the Core Library. It is for this reason that the timeslots are each two hours long, and we thus ask you to please be on time.
- We request that you please join us for at least 2 hours starting at 2:30pm on Wednesdays or either 2:00pm or 4:00pm on Fridays, so that you stay long enough to accomplish meaningful progress. In the Friday Prep Sessions, you’re welcome to sign up for both two-hour timeslots on the same day if you’d like to stay with us for all 4 hours!
- No prior experience or tools are necessary, and you do not need to be affiliated with UND to participate – all are welcome!
- For safety reasons, please wear closed-toe shoes (no sandals).
- At the request of the NDGS, we must limit the age of volunteers to be 16 and above (if on your own), or with parental supervision 14 and above. (Note: If you or a family member are under the age of 14 but would like to see the dinosaur, please email Dr. Ullmann or Dr. Voegele to inquire about setting up a guided visit – we can work to make that happen!)
- We will have an additional 3-ring-binder sign-in book at the room in which we’ll ask you to record your hours.
- Restrooms and a water fountain are available just down the hall from where we will be working. Please only use sealable or closeable containers for water or another drink.
About the fossil
It’s like a jigsaw puzzle—except it’s three-dimensional, over 4,400 pounds, 67 million years old, … and also a dinosaur.
UND’s newest resident dino, the Edmontosaurus specimen that came to campus in October 2023, is undergoing a process akin to solving that absurd jigsaw puzzle.
The goal? To bring it to life through careful cleaning and assembly done by volunteers from the community—from Grand Forks and beyond.
Current project progress
Since the opportunity opened to the community, two tail vertebrae of the specimen have been finished, and significant progress has been made with the remaining nine tail vertebrae as well as the complete tibia (shin bone).
“We are now starting to 3D scan the exposed tibia so we can digitally capture its form before sampling for soft tissue, geochemical, and molecular research by my Masters student, Skylor Booth,” says Ullman. “Skylor is planning to explore how the bone has been chemically altered through fossilization and to test it for the preservation of original bone cells, blood vessels, and their component biologic molecules, such as collagen.”
Since February 2024, 200+ participants from UND, Grand Forks, and the surrounding community—including community volunteers who have come from as far away as Bismarck and Bemidji—have dedicated their time to joining the collaborative efforts.
Questions? Contact Dr. Ullmann at paul.ullmann@UND.edu, by phone at 701.777.5115, or in his office in Leonard Hall, Room 217.
