Museum of the Rockies

For 40 years, the Museum of the Rockies (MOR) has been a leader in the field of paleontology, building one of the most extensive paleontological collections in the world, including extensive fossil material from Upper Cretaceous formations—many of which are holotypes. While select Upper Cretaceous specimens are currently exhibited in the museum, MOR staff observed that visitors do not understand the importance of the Upper Cretaceous, as relevant specimens are dispersed within a larger chronological exhibit. Thus, a new 2,300-square-foot exhibit titled Cretaceous Crossroads was proposed to highlight the significance of the Upper Cretaceous in Montana.

In 2023, Lord was invited to join Bluewater Studio on a turnkey project to provide Concept Development, Interpretsive Planning, and Content Development services for Cretaceous Crossroads, with WeatherstonBruer Associates as the designers. Real fossils and fossil casts of relevant dinosaur, marine reptile, flora, and micro-vertebrate specimens will be mounted and interpreted to demonstrate the Upper Cretaceous as a time of major evolutionary and environmental transitions (approximately 82 to 71 million years ago), particularly in Montana. Hands-on interactives and people stories will engage visitors and ask them to think critically and scientifically, while humanizing the field of paleontology.

We facilitated a creative visioning workshop with (current and former) MOR staff and affiliated researchers to hone the “big idea” and develop a thematic framework that will help general audiences engage with complex paleontological themes (such as growth, evolution, and paleobiology). We continue to work closely with MOR through content development and detail design. The exhibit opened in June 2025.