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.
Discover: fossils
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NewsFootprints from a vast dinosaur highway discovered in the UK
The UK’s biggest-ever site of dinosaur footprints has been discovered in Oxfordshire.
6 January 2025 -
NewsNeanderthals and Homo sapiens interbred within the past 50,000 years
Our species mated with the Neanderthals much later than thought, tearing up the timeline of human evolution.
12 December 2024 -
Science newsTyrannosaur teeth discovered in southern England reveal Cretaceous dinosaur ecosystem
Spinosaurs, tyrannosaurs and relatives of Velociraptor once stalked England’s south coast.
10 December 2024 -
Science newsTriassic reptile with unusual jaws named as a new species
Threordatoth chasmatos was one of the last survivors of a once-widespread group of lizard-like animals.
6 December 2024
Life recorded in fossils
Explore fossils from the Museum's collection in an online exhibition, a collaboration between the Museum and Google Arts & Culture.