Paleontology

TITLE: LONDON´S SCIENCE MUSEUM.

(United Kigndom)

Presented by:
Morocho Marlon, Ortega Nathalia

SCHOOL OF EARTH SCIENCES, ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT

YACHAY TECH UNIVERSITY

Lecturer
Dr. Jorge Toro.

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Content
• Location.
• History
• General Collections.
• Fossil Collections.
• Visiting.
• Interesting Data.
• References

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Location.
London´s Science Museum is considered one of the greatest museums of science
and technology in the world
• It is located in South Kensington,
London, near the Victoria and
Albert Museum.
• London´s Science Museum was
divided in 2 sections: Science and
Art.

Fig 1: Picture obtained of Google Maps (2022).

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History.

The museum was founded in 1857

under Bennet Woodcroft from the
collection of the Royal Society of Arts
and surplus items from the Great
Exhibition as part of the South
Kensington Museum, together with what
is now the Victoria and Albert
Museum. It included a collection of
machinery which became the Museum
of Patents in 1858, and the Patent Office
Museum in 1863. Fig 2: Modern World gallery (Wikipedia.org,)

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History.
• In 1883, the contents of the Patent
Office Museum were transferred to
the South Kensington Museum.

• In 1885, the Science Collections

were renamed the Science Museum.

• In 1893 a separate director was

appointed. The Art Collections were
renamed the Art Museum, which
eventually became the Victoria and
Albert Museum.

Fig 2 :Science Museum, Wellcome. (Tzsemil Ntesali, 2022)

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History

In 1909 that the two sections were

formally separated; the arts section
went on to form the core of the
Victoria and Albert Museum. The Fig 4:Science Museum. (Daniel Perez,2016)

Science Museum’s present quarters,

designed by Sir Richard Allison.

Fig 5:Art Museum. (Karam Sarda,2019)

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History
• In 1913 and temporarily halted by World
War I.
• The Museum buildings were expanded
over the following years; a pioneering
Children's Gallery with interactive
exhibits opened in 1931, the Centre
Block was completed in 1961–3.
• The infill of the East Block and the
construction of the Lower & Upper
Wellcome Galleries in 1980, and the
construction of the Wellcome Wing in
2000 result in the Museum now extending
Fig 5:Cancer Revolution. (Science Museum,2022)
to Queen's Gate.

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History
Palgrave Macmillan, published the official
centenary history of the Science Museum on 14
April 2010. The first complete history of the
Science Museum since 1957, Science for the
Nation: Perspectives on the History of the
Science Museum is a series of individual views
by Science Museum staff and external academic
historians of different aspects of the Science
Museum's history. While it is not a chronological
history in the conventional sense, the first five
chapters cover the history of the museum from
the 1860s to the opening of the Wellcome Wing
in 2000.
Fig 6:Sciecne Fiction Voyage. (Science Museum,2022)

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Galleries
The museums has zones divided by colors.
• Red zone.- Earth Hall, Human Evolution , Earth´s Treasury, Lasting Impressions,
Restless Surface, From the Beginning, Volcanoes and Earthquakes, The
Waterhouse Gallery.
• Green zone.- Birds, Creepy Crawlies, Fossil Marine Reptiles, Hintze Hall,
Minerals, The Vault, Fossils from Britain, Anning Rooms, Investigate, East Pavilion.
• Blue zone.- Dinosaurs, Fish, Amphibians and Reptiles, Human Biology, Images of
Nature, The Jerwood Gallery, Marine Invertebrates, Mammals, Mammals Hall,
Treasures in the Cadogan Gallery.
• Orange zone.- Wildlife Garden, Darwin Center, Zoology Spirit Building

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Galleries
The museums has zones divided by colors.
• Red zone.- Earth Hall, Human Evolution , Earth´s Treasury, Lasting Impressions,
Restless Surface, From the Beginning, Volcanoes and Earthquakes, The
Waterhouse Gallery.
• Green zone.- Birds, Creepy Crawlies, Fossil Marine Reptiles, Hintze Hall,
Minerals, The Vault, Fossils from Britain, Anning Rooms, Investigate, East Pavilion.
• Blue zone.- Dinosaurs, Fish, Amphibians and Reptiles, Human Biology, Images of
Nature, The Jerwood Gallery, Marine Invertebrates, Mammals, Mammals Hall,
Treasures in the Cadogan Gallery.
• Orange zone.- Wildlife Garden, Darwin Center, Zoology Spirit Building

NHM webpage
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Red Zone
Earth Hall contain the most complete
skeleton found of a Stegosaurus.
Volcanoes and Earthquakes has an active
volcano model and an earthquake
simulator designed by James Gardner.
Restless Surface show river formation, role
of winds in shaping the Earth, a giant
Stalagmite. From the beginning show the
origin of the universe, the earliest life of
Earth by a microfossil, skull of a
Phorusrhacos. Lasting Impressions a Stegosaurus skeleton, NHM webpage

Cranbourne meteorite, Sunday Stone, a

200-million-year-old wave ripples on beach
sand, a petrified tree stump, dinosaur
footprints, and a giant ammonite.
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Green zone
The evolution of the planet.
Hintze Hall has the 25-meter blue
whale skeleton, 122-129 million years
old of Mantellisaurus, American
Mastodon.
Minerals gallery shows a flawless blue
topaz gemstone, Winchcombe
meteorite.
Then, the Fossil Marine Reptiles has
specimens of ichthyosaurs,
Plesiosaurs. Natural History Museum webpage

Birds gallery has an Archaeopteryx

fossil cast, that also can be found in
the Treasures gallery.
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Blue Zone

The diversity of life on Earth.

Dinosaurs has the skull of a Triceratops,
first Iguanodon known, part of the
Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.
Marine Invertebrates has arrays of
shells, crabs related to spyders
Mammals (blue whale model) is possible
to see a Hyracotherium, skulls from a
narwhal and sea cows. Natural History Museum webpage

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Orange Zone
Zoology spirit building preserve 22 million
specimens as a common octopus, a
lesser vampire bat and a giant toad.
Cocoon has insects and plants
specimens, butterflies, tarantulas and
goliath beetle, interactive displays.
Wildlife Garden has a bee tree, greyface
dartmoor sheep.
The Darwin centre has a famous giant
squid of 8.62 meters named Archie.

Natural History Museum webpage

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Fossil Collections
The Natural History Museum had trace
the evolution of life with the evidence of
fossils. Its first evidence of life is from
~3.5 billion years ago. The red rock
contain the oldest fossil of the world. It is
from Western Australia. It has
microfossils of filaments that appear to
modern cyanobacteria.
There is a debate around this fossil
because some though that it could be
formed by inorganic process.
The Apex Chert. NHM webpage

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Fossil Collection
It evolved slowly until the Cambrian
explosion.
Then, there was a diversification in body
types at 540 Ma.
The trilobites were creatures with early
eyes, they evolved in elaborated forms.
The eyes were arranged in unique
cylinder shapes.
These eyes give them a 360° vision.

Erbenochile trilobite. NHM.

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Fossil Collection
Then, there was the Nautiloids that lived
in seas at the Jurassic and Cretaceous.
Similar to ammonites
Species of nautiloids still live in the
current Indo-Pacific seas.
They were fewer than ammonites, and
they had less diversity in shell shape,
but they fed from a different source.
So, the prey of ammonites collapsed
during the extinction event, and
consequently the ammonites disappear.
Nautiloids Cenoceras. NHM.

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Fossil Collection
This fossil of Jurassic of the UK, was a perfect case for study the evolution.
It was possible to trace the change of the form of Gryphaea through different species.
It concludes that increasingly broader and flatter shells helped to stay more stable in
the mud, resisting to sink.

Gryphaea. NHM.

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Fossil Collection
This fossil helped to construct the chart of
British geology by linking the layers of
rocks.
The correlation allowed to William Smith
to create and publish the first geological
map of England and Wales in 1815.

Ammonites. NHM.

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Fossil Collection
Mary Anning is a famous fossil collector. She discovered the 5- meter skeleton of an
ancient sea reptile (Ichthyosaurs).

Ichthyosaurs. NHM.

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Fossil Collection

This fossil evidence one of the most important

on Earth history.
Plants colonized land successfully.
It has vascular system and waxy cuticle with
characteristics of modern plants.

Cooksonia. NHM.

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Fossil Collection

Then, animals also joined to the land.

This migration was critical to led to the
evolution of humans.
From 380 Myr.
Its bones joined to the probably evolution to
amphibians.

Euusthernopteron. NHM.

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Fossil Collection

This Archaeopterix was one the first vertebrate

creatures that fly.
They could be consider the first birds.
All of them comes from a quarry in Germany.

Archaeopteryx. NHM.

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Fossil Collection
Several examples of island dwarfism were
found by palaeontologist Dorothea Bate at
many of Mediterranean islands during
Pleistocene.
Pygmy deer, elephants, ‘mouse goat’.

In other parts, some mammals were becoming

extremely large as this found near to London in
1863.
A mammoth that lives ~200,000a, it reached 4
meters tall and ~3m long.
Scientist look for a possibility of bring
mammoths back using DNA samples.

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Natural History Museum webpage
Visits and Interesting facts
Receive > 5 million of visitors each year.
They have around 80 million of specimens.

They have around 300 scientists that work in

the maintenance of museum as research with
the specimens.

Publish over 700 scientific papers.

The datasets at the museum is able for
scientific research.

Natural History Museum webpage

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References
• The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. (2022). Science Museum.
En Encyclopedia Britannica.
• Home. (s/f). ScienceMuseum. Retrieved August 2, 2022, from
https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/home
• Science museum, London, United Kingdom - Google arts & culture. (s/f).
Google Arts & Culture.
https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/science-museum
• Home. Natural History Museum. (n.d.). Retrieved August 2, 2022, from
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/

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