Online Activities: Fossils

ROM's Fossil Collection

Less than 1% of the ROM's Invertebrate Paleontology collection is on display. The rest of the fossils are carefully stored behind the scenes as part of the study collection.

The fossils in the ROM's study collection are mainly from Ontario and from the Burgess Shale in the British Columbia Rockies. Scientists from all over the world use the ROM collection in their research.

The fossils are kept in large stacks of storage drawers. Each specimen is numbered and labeled. The information on the label matches information in a catalogue about what the fossil is, where it is from, how old it is, how the ROM got it, and anything else that we need to remember.

Today, most of the information about the study collection is kept in a database on a computer. Without this information, fossils lose much of their value to science.

 

 

Brittle Star fossil.

Scallop fossil.

Nautiloid fossil