Lasting Impressions

Examine remarkable fossil evidence of long-ago events in the Last Impressions gallery.

From 200-million-year-old wave ripples on beach sand to a petrified tree stump, dinosaur footprints, and a giant ammonite, the past is imprinted on all of these gallery specimens.

Star specimens and exhibits

  • sedimentary rock shaped by Earth's moving crust and shifting continents
  • a calcareous deposit called the Sunday Stone that tells the story of the working lives and hardships of miners in the 1800s
  • agate grown in the gas bubbles of molten lava
  • lichens that live for 10,000 years
  • a fossilised dinosaur vertebra
  • and bamboo that grows a metre a day

Explore the galleries with the Museum map

Find out how to get around with the Museum map. There are four zones to discover.

Explore fossils from the Museum's collection in an online exhibition, a collaboration between the Museum and Google Arts & Culture.

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