The hundreds of fossils in our collection sample animals and plants from the earliest times to the most recent. Although most of our invertebrate specimens are real fossils, many of our vertebrates are casts of priceless fossils from national museums, universities and private collections.  If these were the original fossils, the collection would be worth many millions of dollars and be completely out of our reach.  The casts are made with painstaking care, not just to protect the original, but to make the copy an exact replica.  In our course in Historical Geology students study many of these fossils in the laboratory.

Students also have access to the Virtual Museum of Fossils which displays the full collection with high resolution images. The user can look for fossils through time or by animal type. Visit our Fossil Museum: