The Museum of the Earth, Ithaca, New York, USA

[Halichoeres]

I was in Ithaca (a small city with a large university in upstate New York) back in May and got a few photos of this small but high quality museum. Most of the museum is below ground level, but at ground level there's a nice right whale skeleton to greet you.



The fossil record of New York State is much better for the Paleozoic than the Mesozoic, so those exhibits are superior. Here's a sampling, under the spoiler tag.

Spoiler

Left: Acadoparadoxides, right: Paradoxides



An assemblage of Asaphus. These are quite large, at least 20 cm in length.



Eurypterus, if memory serves



Pterygotus, again, if memory doesn't fail me



I'm not good at panoramas, but this gives an idea of the variety of specimens they have on display. They have an important research collection, as well, but that's not on public display for the most part.



Arctinurus



Drotops. Man, look at the texture on that thing.



I believe this one is Eldredgeops



Walliserops



The stem-shark Cheiracanthus



With a standard 8 1/2×11" sheet of paper for scale



Model of Coccosteus, with the tail that too many companies still give their Dunkleosteus figures.



Dunkleosteus with a nice mural behind it.



Bothriolepis



and in fossil form



Scaumenacia, a lungfish



Archaeopteris, one of the earliest plants to adopt a treelike habit.



toothplates from the lungfish Ceratodus



Sea urchins, Archaeocidaris



stunning crinoids, although I don't seem to have recorded which taxon



more unidentified crinoids. Masterful preparation work



Broomisaurus, a Permian gorgonopsid.



Sheet of paper for scale



Next time, the Mesozoic.

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[Gwangi]

This place is very dear to me, I'm glad to see another member of the forum has been there. I used to do volunteer work there actually, though increasingly less often after my daughter was born. Been visiting that place since it opened. It's one of the things I miss most about New York. I thought I had a thread on it somewhere but I probably took for granted its close proximity and kept putting it off. Good to see some of those spectacular fossils again. They're currently having a temporary skull exhibit, did you get to see it? Any pictures of that?

[Halichoeres]

I know what you mean, having just moved from Chicago to Albany it dawns on me afresh, constantly, how many things I had taken for granted. I was there in May, so that skulls exhibit hadn't been installed yet. Sorry to have missed it, but the visit was well worth the drive to Ithaca anyway.

[Halichoeres]

The Mesozoic part of the museum is less extensive than the Paleozoic part, partly because it's mostly local material and there aren't very many Mesozoic body fossils in New York State. There are some trackways, and some good aquatic stuff. Here's a sample:

skull reconstruction of Eoraptor, which I think is somewhat out of date:



A series of Coelophysis models showing our evolving understanding of dinosaur morphology and behavior.





A big Triassic mural featuring a phytosaur, a rauisuchian (I think it's Ticinosuchus), the aetosaur Stagonolepis, and Coelophysis.



Semionotus, one of many stem-gars known from New York State:



Unidentified fish from the Triassic-Jurassic boundary:



Diplurus, a Triassic coelacanth:



A Lower Jurassic mural, with Coelophysis and Dilophosaurus:



A very up-to-date, Scott Hartman-conforming model of Stegosaurus:



And one of what can only be Quetzalcoatlus.



They had a great gift shop that stocked Safari and some other decent merch. The ramp that goes down from the lobby to the exhibits has more than 100 life-sized paintings of fossils throughout the Phanerozoic. You can buy them in book form for about $55 and I highly recommend it. You can get it here: http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo3628030.html

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

It looks like a nice little museum. The stegosaurus and quetzalcoatlus look at home there, but I'll definitely miss them when the National Fossil Hall re-opens next year.

[Night Maw]

A big Triassic mural featuring a phytosaur, a rauisuchian (I think it's Ticinosuchus), the aetosaur Stagonolepis, and Coelophysis.

It looks like the Safari Coelophysis may have been inspired by that mural - not a criticism of the model, but one hell of a coincidence if otherwise.

[mgaguilar]

I studied in this museum in its entirety as a precedent study for layouts (for my bachelor of architecture) that play between the ground plane, below, and above.

Thank you so much for reminding me of it! Time to work on some designs!   

[Gwangi]

That mural is from a Doug Henderson painting, FWIW.

That incorrect skull has been there since the museum opened. I told them it was wrong but there it sits.

I studied in this museum in its entirety as a precedent study for layouts (for my bachelor of architecture) that play between the ground plane, below, and above.

You probably already know this then but the reason that museum is below ground is because they weren't allowed to build anything taller than the historic buildings around it.

[Halichoeres]

It looks like the Safari Coelophysis may have been inspired by that mural - not a criticism of the model, but one hell of a coincidence if otherwise.

Definitely possible, although both also remind me of gazelles or springboks, common inspirations for small to medium sized dinosaurs.

You probably already know this then but the reason that museum is below ground is because they weren't allowed to build anything taller than the historic buildings around it.

I think rules like that are incredibly stupid, but at least in this instance it resulted in an interesting design. Constraint breeds creativity, I guess.