Abstract
The geological-palaeontological collections of the Center of Natural History have their origin in the former “Naturhistorisches Museum Hamburg” founded in 1843, but most of the old collections were destroyed in 1943. Since 1945, new extensive collections have been gathered/built up, among them an amber collection (more than 6000 amber pieces), a collection of glacial deposits, and a collection of cretaceous specimens. Around 10% of the scientific collection have been catalogued/digitalized to date. Selected objects are presented in a public exhibition area comprising ca. 900 m2. Parts of the collection are used for teaching, and particularly the amber and the micropalaeontological collections are presently in the focus of scientific research. Public relations and museum pedagogy is centrally controlled at the Center of Natural History of the Universität Hamburg, to which the Geological-Palaeontological Museum belongs since 2014.
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Acknowledgements
We want to thank the late curator Wolfgang Weitschat (passed away in December 2016), who even after his retirement supported the collection work and contributed to public relation efforts. Photographs were provided by Alexander Bratek, Sabine Prader, and Eva Vinx. Support by Gerhard Schmiedl (Institute for Geology, Hamburg) is gratefully acknowledged.
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Kotthoff, U., Schlüter, J. (2018). HAMBURG: Palaeontological Collections of the Center of Natural History, Universität Hamburg. In: Beck, L., Joger, U. (eds) Paleontological Collections of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Natural History Collections. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77401-5_27
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