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Quaternary Vertebrate Paleontology - is the study of fossil organisms that lived during the last 1.8 million years, and it is an ongoing project at this Museum focusing on the Alberta Province with many puzzles still in place. (For instance, it is puzzling that fossils of certain animal species are absent from Alberta such as the stag-elk and giant beaver despite their presence to the south, in the lower 48 United States, and to the north, in Beringia -those parts of Yukon Territory and Alaska that remained unglaciated during the Wisconsinan glaciation.

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The Collection of Vertebrate Palaeontology comprises about 25.000 specimens (and, in addition, several thousands of vertebrate micro fossils) representing all vertebrate groups from the Ordovician to the Pleistocene. The main part is, however, constituted by fishes from the Middle and Upper Devonian, the Marine Upper Permian and early Triassic. Included are placoderms, acanthodians, elasmobranchs, actinopterygians, dipnoans, porolepiformes, osteolepiformes and coelacanthiformes. The material of these groups derives mainly from deposits in East Greenland and Europe, while agnathan material includes specimens from, among others, Silurian deposits in North Greenland. The collection possesses, however, also the world's first discovered late Devonian tetrapods, i.e., the celebrated Ichthyostegids and Acanthostegids, deriving from localities in East Greenland. Furthermore, the collection includes an extensive number of early Tertiary (Upper Paleocene) vertebrates, mostly actinopterygians but also partial bird skeletons from the Mo-clay of Denmark whose marine Oligocene and Miocene deposits have yielded well preserved whale material, including articulated skeleton parts, likewise housed in the collection.Finally, the collection includes a large material of casts which serve as demonstration objects in the Geological Museum's public exhibitions on topics like "Dinosaurs" and "The origin of Man".
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Geology and Paleontology - The open section of the Museum is mostly dedicated to Italian fossil mammals, collected during over two centuries and for which the Museum has gained a worldwide renown. On the second floor, which is not open for the public, the Museum has stored collections of invertebrates, rocks and plants.

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The University's Geology Department is an established research center in micropaleontological studies and research. Currently the Center is the home of a small but diverse group working with a number of microfossils (such as foraminifera, palynomorphs, ichthyoliths, and microvertebrate remains).

The Paleontology Research Group maintains important online resources in paleontology as follows:

• The Fossil Record 2 is a near-complete listing of the diversity of life through time, compiled at the level of the family. The database is available in various forms so you can download all or part of the listing, or search for particular families, orders, phyla. And iff you have access to a Java reader, you can manipulate and plot the data as well.
• The Fossil Tetrapod Families provides an online listing of some 840 non-singleton tetrapod families giving stratigraphic range, geographic distribution, and broad ecological category.
• The Cladestore is an electronic source of data matrices from published cladograms. For further information on submitting a data matrix, e-mail your query to mike.benton@bristol.ac.uk.
• The Cladestrat is a database that contains results of tests to compare cladograms with stratigraphy.

Finally, online, there is a dinosaur database called Dinobase containing a a list of dinosaurs, a classification of dinosaur, pictures and related resources.
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Geology - The Museon has some exquisite fossils, such as one fish eating another fish.

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The Tegelen Clay (Fossil) Collection - In addition to many plants, fossil remains of species of beaver (2), panther, elephant, monkey, tapir, rhinoceros, deer and pond tortoise are being displayed.

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Paleontological Museum where you will be greated, in the Main Hall, by a ten metre long skeleton of the dinosaur Iguanodon, which lived 140 million years ago. A 400 million year old sea scorpion is also on exhibition here together with trilobites, cephalopds and some of the oldest fishes. A million year old giant ground sloth from South America is also in this hall. The evolution of man can be studied here too. The adjoining Dinosaur Hall contains a collection of skeletons and drawings of reptiles that lived on the land, in the air and in the sea. A dinosaur nest, containing six eggs, can also be seen here.

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The Palaeontology collections incorporate a number of rare fossils from the Swiss Alps. The collections comprise about 1680 drawers and many single oversized objects. The Vertebrates (mainly mammals, from different countries) have 120 drawers and they are from the Tertiary and the Ice age.

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The Department of Vertebrate Paleontology holds a collection that includes the fossil elephants studied by Thomas Jefferson, the first dinosaur fossils from North America, the only fossil collected by Lewis and Clark, as well as the extensive collections of Leidy and Cope. Although many of these specimens have great historical value, they also remain crucial for primary research. Today, the vertebrate fossil collection houses more than 21,000 specimens of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

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