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
- 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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Science newsEvolving a bigger brain isn't always about intelligence
It's more common for mammals to have evolved smaller body sizes which makes it look like the brain is getting bigger.
28 April 2021 -
Science newsProlonged suckling has vastly limited marsupial evolution
Marsupials have missed out on their evolutionary potential because of how they reproduce.
28 April 2021 -
Science newsThe hearing of the Ganges river dolphin is unlike any other cetacean
Their hearing may have been why these dolphins survived when all other relatives died out.
31 March 2021 -
Science newsFossil evidence of mysterious 'southern Denisovans' yet to be found
When modern humans arrived in the islands of southeast Asia, they may have encountered a range of ancient human species.
22 March 2021
Life recorded in fossils
Explore fossils from the Museum's collection in an online exhibition, a collaboration between the Museum and Google Arts & Culture.