to opening, the museum's informal working name was the Palaeontological Museum and Research Institute, although it was changed by Baird to the Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, in honour of Joseph Tyrrell, a geologist of the Geological Survey of Canada. Tyrrell accidentally discovered the first reported dinosaur fossil at the Red Deer River valley, while searching for coal seams in 1884. The Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology was opened to the public on 25 September 1985. In the same year, the museum announced its participation the China-Canada Dinosaur Project, the institution's first collaborative, out-of-province research project. The collaborative effort marked the first meaningful collaboration between Chinese and western palaeontologists since the Chinese Communist Revolution. On 28 June 1990, the museum was renamed the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, after it was bestowed the title royal by Queen Elizabeth II. The museum's volunteer support group, the Royal Tyrrell Museum Cooperating Society, was formed in 1993, and helps fund museum-sanctioned research projects, publications, postdoctoral fellowships, and other museum-centred events. In 2003, the museum completed its first major expansion to its building, the ATCO Tyrrell Learning Centre annex. Plans to expand the museum's building again were underway as early as 2013, although the museum did not announce its plans to expand the museum building until 2016. The expansion plan saw the construction of a learning lounge annex, that increased the building's size by an additional . The learning lounge annex was created in response to the feedback received from the museum, which requested more hands-on exhibits and activities at the museum. The expansion for the museum was funded by the provincial and federal governments, costing approximately C$9.3 million. The provincial government provided C$5.7 million, while the remaining C$3.5 million was provided by the federal government. The expansion marks the first time the museum's received cultural infrastructure funding from the federal government. The learning lounge annex was formally opened to the public on 28 June 2019. Grounds The museum is located on North Dinosaur Trail at Midland Provincial Park, in Drumheller, Alberta. The area which the museum occupies is situated in the middle of the fossil-bearing strata of the Late Cretaceous Horseshoe Canyon Formation. The Badlands Interpretive Trail is a hiking trail northeast to the museum building, and is used extensively by the museum public and school programs. Building The building was designed to function as a museum, and as a laboratory/research facility. The original structure