<P> Located 6 km (4 mi) northwest from Drumheller, Alberta and 135 km (84 mi) northeast from Calgary, the museum is situated in the middle of the fossil - bearing strata of the Late Cretaceous Horseshoe Canyon Formation and holds numerous specimens from the Alberta badlands, Dinosaur Provincial Park and the Devil's Coulee Dinosaur Egg Site . </P> <P> The Royal Tyrrell Museum is operated by Alberta's Ministry of Culture . </P> <P> The museum is named in honour of Joseph Burr Tyrrell, a geologist who accidentally discovered the first reported dinosaur fossil in the Red Deer River valley in 1884 while searching for coal seams . The carnivorous dinosaur was later named Albertosaurus sarcophagus . The museum opened September 25, 1985 and was given "Royal" status in 1990 . </P> <P> More than 4,400 square metres (47,000 sq ft) of the museum's 11,200 square metres (121,000 sq ft) is dedicated to exhibits in a series of chronological galleries celebrating the 3.9 - billion - year - history of life on Earth . One of the most popular is "Dinosaur Hall", with over 40 mounted dinosaur skeletons, including specimens of Tyrannosaurus rex, Albertosaurus, Stegosaurus and Triceratops . Other exhibits include "Lords of the Land", a gallery of some of the most dangerous theropods known from Alberta, "Burgess Shale", a diorama of dozens of creatures from Yoho National Park in British Columbia; "Devonian Reef", a life - size model of a 375 - million - year old reef; the newly renovated "Cretaceous Garden", featuring representatives of the plants that lived in prehistoric Alberta, and "Age of Mammals" and "Ice Ages" which cover mammalian life in the Cenozoic . Dioramas painted by Vladimir Krb . Also on display is the "Triassic Giant", a 1,700 square feet (160 m) specimen of the world's largest known marine reptile . The 21 metres (69 ft) long ichthyosaur Shastasaurus sikanniensis was recovered from the shores of the Sikanni Chief River in northeastern British Columbia by a team led by Elizabeth Nicholls, former curator of Marine Reptiles . This exhibit pays homage to the work of Nicholls, who died in 2004 . In May 2017 the museum displayed an unusually well - preserved nodosaur . </P>

Who is the royal tyrrell museum named after