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College Student Who Grew Up Loving Dinosaurs Found a 65-Million-Year-Old Partial Triceratops Skull

Fossil Excavators said in the coming months it will begin the process of preparing the skull for research and public display

A college student who has been a fan of dinosaurs since he was a child was part of a team of excavators who recently dug up the partial skull of a 65-million-year-old triceratops buried at a North Dakota dig site, NBC News reports.

Harrison Duran, a student at the University of California, Merced, and Michael Kjelland were on a two-week paleontology dig when they found the remains at Hell Creek Formation in June.

Duran and Kjelland, a biology professor at Mayville State University in North Dakota, founded the nonprofit organization Fossil Excavators after bonding over their love for the prehistoric creatures. In a statement posted on the organization's website, the skull was found "inverted with the base of its left horn partially exposed above the ground." Duran and Kjelland named the skull Alice.

It took a week to excavate the skull, which was so fragile it had to be stabilized with glue and plaster. Fossil Excavators said Alice is believed to be over 65 million years old.

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