Document of bibliographic reference 303890

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Bibliographic resource

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Book chapters

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AMS

Title

WIEN: “To the Realm of Nature and its Exploration”: The paleontological collections of the Natural History Museum Vienna

Abstract

The Natural History Museum Vienna houses approximately 30 million specimens, framed by an imperial architecture. Highlights in the 39 exhibit halls include the world-famous and unique 29,500-year-old Venus of Willendorf, the world’s largest and oldest public collection of meteorites, as well as the large dinosaur hall with a true-to-life animatronics model of an Allosaurus. But the museum is also one of the largest non-university research centers in Austria. The museum’s departments are home to around 60 scientists carrying out fundamental research in a wide range of fields. Due to the integrative role between life and earth sciences, the Geological-Paleontological Department has an outstanding position within the museum. Its staff members are curators and researchers in dual role and organize about 3.5 million objects. Like the museum’s architecture, the foci of the scientific collections were strongly influenced by the history of the Habsburg Monarchy.

Bibliographic citation

Harzhauser, M.; Kroh, A. (2018). WIEN: “To the Realm of Nature and its Exploration”: The paleontological collections of the Natural History Museum Vienna, in: Beck, L.A. et al. Paleontological collections of Germany, Austria and Switzerland: The history of life of fossil organisms at museums and universities. Natural History Collections, : pp. 513-523. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77401-5_53