A natural history of deep time, housed in one of the oldest paleontological collections in the world.
The Strata Museum of Natural History holds one of the most significant paleontological collections on the continent — over forty thousand specimens recovered from the Hell Creek, Morrison, and Djadokhta formations. Our halls trace life on Earth from the Cambrian explosion through the end of the Cretaceous, one patient excavation at a time.
Uncovered in the summer of 1904 by the Hornaday expedition, specimen 842-T is the most complete Triceratops horridus cranium in the northern hemisphere — and the anchor of the museum's Cretaceous gallery. Her skull alone measures seven feet across.
Curated by the museum's resident paleontologists and visiting scholars from the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, the Royal Tyrrell, and the Smithsonian.
A new reading of Velociraptor mongoliensis — recent finds from the Djadokhta sandstone suggest plumage patterns far richer than previously understood. Six specimens on loan from the Mongolian Academy of Sciences.
The museum's Burgess Shale specimens on public view for the first time in twenty-three years. Exquisite preservation of soft-bodied fauna from the Cambrian explosion.
A scientific meditation on the final hours of the Cretaceous. Iridium-layered sediment cores, micro-tektites, and the charcoal record of a single, catastrophic day.