The Paleontological Museum (''Paleontologiske samlinger'') contains the largest collection of fossils in Norway. It is part of the

Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo The Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo ( no, Naturhistorisk museum, NHM) is Norway's oldest and largest museum of natural history. It is situated in the neighborhood of Tøyen in Oslo, Norway. It traces its roots to the Universi ...

. The principal focus is on fossils from the

Lower Palaeozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...

rocks of the Oslo Region, the Norwegian continental shelf and from the

Arctic Archipelago The Arctic Archipelago, also known as the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, is an archipelago lying to the north of the Canadian continental mainland, excluding Greenland (an autonomous territory of Denmark). Situated in the northern extremity of No ...

. The collection includes fossils and sedimentary rocks from both the Arctic and

Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and other ...

regions. Large collections are from

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...

, as well as specimens from Greenland, Canada and Russia. The collection is estimated to consist of over 1 million samples, including

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

of invertebrates from the Permian geologic period. Fossils of vertebrates include fossils from

of early fish from the Devonian geologic period. Post-glacial fossils and sediment samples from Norway are represented, as are Devonian plant fossils, principally from the Arctic region of Canada.

References

External links

Norwegian center for paleontology websiteUniversity of Oslo Natural History Museum website
Museums in Oslo Natural history museums in Norway Fossil museums University museums in Norway University of Oslo Paleontology in Norway {{norway-museum-stub

See also

References

External links