Colossal fossil: Winona State team discovers rare dinosaur
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For many people, digging for dinosaur bones was a game of pretend in the sandbox as a kid, or maybe an interactive exhibit at a museum. But it’s reality for paleontologists right here in Minnesota.
Winona State University is now home to a 66-million-old dinosaur fossil of the Edmontosaurus. But it’s not just any fossil, it’s a “dinosaur mummy,” meaning it could have preserved skin and other soft tissues. It’s one of less than a dozen worldwide.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of find,” said Winona State geoscience professor and paleontologist Lee Beatty.
The Edmontosaurus is estimated to have been 20-25 feet long when it was alive during the Cretaceous Period, the last period before dinosaurs went extinct. It’s about the same size as Tyrannosaurus Rex. Researchers believe the Edmontosaurus was a duck-billed herbivore and lived in the end of the age of dinosaurs.
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The fossil was discovered in July 2024 by Winona State geoscience graduate Adam Schroeder, who now runs public dinosaur digs in the Badlands of North Dakota — specifically Hell Creek Formation, where many dinosaurs are found. Schroeder brought on Beatty, his former professor.
The excavation began in summer of 2025. The team uncovered the fossil by hand, using shovels and jackhammers.
At the end of the summer, the fossil measuring 12 feet long and 7 feet wide was encased in a massive plaster jacket to preserve it. Once transported to Winona State, a window was removed to get the fossil inside.
The fossil’s arrival at the university is only the beginning.
“This is when the really delicate work is going to start, because we want to see, once we start removing rock away from it, how much of that skin that we found hints of at the site, how much of that is going to be preserved inside that block of rock,” explained Beatty.
The meticulous process to remove all the rock from the bone could take up to five years. But the end result could unveil scientific discoveries.
“It's really going to help give us a more complete picture of what these animals were like when they were alive,” said Beatty. “And on top of that starts to give us a sense of what kind of processes are going on that preserve the remains after they die.”
Students and community members will get to take part in the preparation process of the bones. Eventually the university’s geoscience department will put the dinosaur on display for the public.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation with Minnesota Now host Nina Moini and Lee Beatty.
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