Geo- and Paleontological Collection

The geological-paleontological collections originally belonged to the Hamburg Museum of Natural History and comprises around 138,000 objects. Some of these are of great regional significance, for example, the seventy-million-year-old fossils from the Lägerdorf chalk pit in Schleswig-Holstein and the archive for glacial erratics. The amber specimens and the extensive collection of fossilized cephalopods enjoy particular renown.

The collections contribute to a fundamental understanding of the relationships between geological processes, climate changes, evolution and the development of biodiversity, with a focus on Europe.

The geological-paleontological collections derive from the Geological State Institute founded in 1907, which in turn emerged from the mineralogical and geological-paleontological collections of the former Natural History Museum in Hamburg. Much of the inventory was destroyed in an air raid in 1943. Some collection items with traces of fire still witness the effects of the bombing.

After 1945, the collection was rebuilt under Prof. Dr. Erhard Voigt, now under the roof of the new "Geological-Paleontological Institute" of the University of Hamburg. The collections and the associated museum have been located in the Geomatikum, Bundesstrasse 55, since 1975. Since 2014, the geological-palaeontological collections have been integrated into the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change.

Overview of the geological-paleontological collections:

• Amber collection
• Fossil cuttlefish
• Glacial erratics
• Micropaleontology
• Other collections