Listen, we get it. More than a year of pandemic isolation has warped everyone's sense of temporal perspective— in other words, time's gone all wibbly wobbly for a lot of us.
Here's a potentially helpful suggestion: try looking at things in a grand, geological point of view. When you're studying the remnants of life from millions and millions of years ago, it can put day-to-day anxieties in a whole new light.
Fortunately, New Jersey is home to plenty of locations where the curious can learn about dinosaurs and discover fossils of their own.
Field Station: Dinosaurs
Utilizing animatronic dinosaurs, games, workshops and live shows, Field Station: Dinosaurs turns Leonia's Overbeck County Park into a thrilling prehistoric destination for all ages.
The 2021 season runs Tuesdays through Sundays June 19 through Sept. 5, then Saturdays and Sundays through Nov. 14, with additional operating hours on select holidays, evenings and other dates.
Go:Overpeck County Park,Henry Hoebel Area, Fort Lee Road, Leonia;855-999-9010,jerseydinos.com. Season passes $60, day passes $16.95.
Rutgers University Geology Museum
The Geology Museum at Rutgers University's New Brunswick campus, founded in 1872, is using incredibly modern means of helping people learn about our planet's history.
Still closed to the public due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the museum has been offering virtual programming.
The museum’s online “Ask a Geologist” series of presentations and discussions concludes 1 p.m. Friday, May 14. That program, which launched in the spring of 2020,“was basically the response that we had to make within one week of the COVID announcement," said museum co-director Patricia Irizarry.
"It was like, ‘If we have to shut down the museum, what can we do to stay connected with an audience?’ " Irizarry explained. "And we didn’t know if people were going to show up or not, but we knew we had computers at home and that we had geologists around us that could give talks.”
The site also offers two paid, virtual programs for Scout troops and other groups: the Virtual Mineral Patch Program, including a mineral identification kit sent to participants, and a Geology Merit Badge Program.
Information for the programs can be found atgeologymuseum.rutgers.edu/museum-events/tours-for-scouts. The Patch Programs launched in the fall, and to date more than 700 children from 24 states have taken part in the mineral session, while about 200 Scouts from 23 states and Puerto Rico have been part of the Merit Badge program.
“That’s definitely been one of the most exciting things that’s happened because of this, just how far we’ve been able to reach people with these topics,” saidmuseum co-directorLauren Neitzke Adamo.
The museum is developing a virtual fossil program it plans to introduce in the fall, and Adamo said that the Patch Programs and the "Ask a Geologist" series will stick around to continue broadening the museum's reach after life returns to normal on campus.
Go: Rutgers UniversityGeology Hall, 85 Somerset St., New Brunswick; 848-932-7243,geologymuseum.rutgers.edu. The museum is currently closed to the public, but visit its website for information on upcoming virtual programs.
Liberty Science Center
Jersey City destination the Liberty Science Center wants guests to meet SUE this summer.
An interactive exhibition featuring a 40-foot-long replica of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton facing off against a full-scale replica of a Triceratops, "SUE: The T.rex Experience" will be on display Saturday, May 22, through Jan. 9, 2022.
(SUE, by the way, is named after paleontologist Sue Hendrickson who, according to the Liberty Science Center website, discovered the Tyrannosaurus rex in 1990.)
Go: Liberty State Park, 222 Jersey City Blvd., Jersey City;201-200-1000,lsc.org. $24.99 for adults, $21.99 for seniors and $19.99 for children, plus $8 for access to "SUE: The T.rex Experience."
Manasquan Reservoir
The environmental center at the Manasquan Reservoir in Howellhas fossils on display, including shark, mastodon and wooly mammoth teeth, as well as the shells of oysters, clams and ammonite in addition to snails, a lobster, the squid-like cephalopoda and dinosaur tracks.
Go:331 Georgia Tavern Road, Howell; 732-751-9453,monmouthcountyparks.com.
New Jersey Maritime Museum
Pre-historic fossils recovered from the inter-continental shelf off the New Jersey coast are on display at the New Jersey Maritime Museum, a collection of maritime history, information and artifacts on Long Beach Island.
Go: 528 Dock Road, Beach Haven;609-492-0202,njmaritimemuseum.org.
Big Brook Park
Fossil hunting for small paleontological items—enough to fit in a 12-ounce can or sandwich-sized bag per person, per day — is allowed at Big Brook Park in Marlboro, with no permit or fee necessary for groups of 10 or fewer.
For more on the rules regarding fossil hunting and collecting in the park, visit the Monmouth County Park System website.
Go: 521 Route 520, Marlboro;732-842-4000, ext. 4312,monmouthcountyparks.com.For fossil hunting and collecting, use the park's Boundary Road parking lot.
Poricy Park
Middletown's Department of Recreation is hosting fossil hunts this summer at the Poricy Park Fossil Bed. According to the Department of Recreation's spring brochure, participants can expect to find marine fossils from the Cretaceous period of 65 million to 72 million years ago.
A trowel and sifter will be provided and a guide will be on hand, and guests are asked to wear rubber boots or old sneakers. Sandals, flip-flops or other slip-on shoes are prohibited.
Hunts happen 4 to 5 p.m. Wednesday May 12, and Wednesday, June 9, and 11 a.m. to noon May 23and June 27.
Go:Poricy Park Fossil Bed,1083 Middletown-Lincroft Road, Middletown;732-615-2260,middletownnj.org. Advance registration is required, $5 for residents and $6 for non-residents.
Jean and Ric Edelman Fossil Park at Rowan University
Home to fossils of ancient marine life from the Cretaceous period, the Jean and Ric Edelman Fossil Park at Rowan University in Sewell is currently closed to the public, with all events on hold. The park expects to re-open for ticketed events in the fall, and plans are also underway for a museum at the site.
Go:625 Woodbury-Glassboro Road, Sewell;rowan.edu/fossils.
Alex Biese has been writing about art, entertainment, culture and news on a local and national level for more than 15 years.
