UNM Paleontology Collections (UNMP)
Hours
- By appointment
Admission
Free
Location
Building 19, SW quadrant of campus
About UNM Paleontology Collections (UNMP)
Accrued over the course of more than 100 years, the UNM Paleontology Collections (UNMP) are a globally important repository of the history of life. UNMP includes over 25,000 invertebrate, vertebrate, and floral specimens representing nearly one billion years of life on Earth. We are excited to be able to house UNMP in the newly renovated Natural History Science Center (NHSC), which provides a collaborative space dedicated to sharing and researching the rich history of our Earth and its biosphere. UNMP is of particular significance to the Southwest, including over 40 type specimens (newly/uniquely named species - a paleontologist’s holy grail). Many of these type specimens are not found outside of UNM – not even in the Smithsonian.
The NHSC was designed with interdisciplinary education and outreach in mind. This vision has resulted in one half of the space designed to engage students from multiple disciplines as well as the community in the value of museum objects as unique repositories of knowledge about the Earth and its life. The other half of the building consists of a publicly-visible fossil preparation lab, an imaging lab, and an analytical space supporting the large UNMP collections room, in which students and researchers have a place to prepare, study, preserve, and explore this unique record of the history of life and communicate its wonders right here on campus.
