Palaeontology and Geology
From its dolerite mountain peaks and limestone caves to the fossil-filled cliffs of Maria Island, Tasmania’s landscape is rich in features that have been shaped by millions of years of geological upheaval.
The Paleontology and Geology collections at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery house a wide range of fossils, rocks and minerals that seek to capture the full diversity of Tasmania’s geological heritage.
Containing over 20,000 registered items, these collections include: Horodyskia ‘string of beads’ fossils that may represent the Earth’s first multicellular organisms, trilobite fossils from the Cambrian explosion when life first evolved shells, marine fossils from the Permian mass extinction event where life on Earth was almost completely extinguished, and the bones of giant marsupial megafauna from the Australian Ice Ages.
The TMAG Collections also hold a diverse range of rock and mineral specimens that speak to the economic importance of the mining and resources industries in Tasmania’s recent history.
These collections include valuable historic specimens, palaeontological type material for Tasmanian species, and a growing number of new specimens collected as part of ongoing research projects exploring Tasmania’s deep-time history.