Earth: the planet and its life

Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUMNH) houses the oldest natural history collections in the UK and contains some of the worlds most important fossils of Jurassic dinosaurs. With its 750,000 visitors per year, OUMNH is the most visited university science museum globally, and the most visited English natural history museum outside London.

A reconstruction of Ice Age Oxfordshire will use the Museum’s significant collection of mammal fossils. The twelve new displays of Earth: the planet and its life will explore these close relationships using up-to-the minute science and high visual impact designs. One row of six displays will examine the way the Earth works and how life interacts with it, from the origin of oceanic and terrestrial ecosystems to more recent human impacts on the planet. The opposite six displays will present ecosystems in deep, geological time, featuring historically important specimens of Jurassic Oxfordshire dinosaurs, fossils from Carboniferous swamps such as those deep beneath Oxford, and ice age mammals from the Thames Valley. Specimens will be drawn from the museum’s exceptional and historic collections, many originally obtained via the quarrying and gravel extraction industries. To house this important material, new conservation-grade showcases will replace the existing outdated cabinets which do not meet modern standards of environmental control.

The new exhibitioin will take up a third of the main gallery space, and Biffa Award has been approached to fund 61 per cent of the cost of the exhibit. Bespoke showcases costing £311,363 will be financed by the applicant through a 10-year loan from the University of Oxford (UO).