Microfossils Collection
The microfossil collection at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) contains nearly 30,000 specimens on 8,900 slides. The collection has a broad geographic and stratigraphic range and includes over 1,300 primary types that appear in seminal monographs and numerous publications on Foraminifera and Ostracoda.
In 2012, AMNH was awarded NSF grant #1203394 to re-house and catalog the entire collection. Over 1000 specimens were photographed, and a select portion was CT scanned. A searchable microfossil database with images can now be accessed through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) data portal, and CT data for 69 specimens can be found on MorphoSource.
History of the Microfossil Collection
The microfossil catalog at AMNH was initiated by Brooks F. Ellis at New York University (NYU) in 1928. He recruited his Ph.D. student Angelina R. Messina to help systematize the literature of the foraminifera.
Angelina Messina joined the Museum to supervise the compilation of the catalog and to curate the microfossil collection that arrived later; largely consisting of research material from Columbia University deposited at AMNH. The collection was further expanded by donations from oil companies conducting exploration in South America.
Ellis and Messina retired in the late 1960s, but no additional micropaleontology curators were appointed. By the 1980s, many specimens were in poor physical condition and remained uncataloged. As a result, a substantial proportion of the microfossil collection was sent to the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.
Microfossil Rehousing
The microfossils that remained at the AMNH were cataloged and re-housed as part of the grant project NSF grant #1203394.
As part of the project, we re-housed the microfossil collection to improve its long-term preservation, accessibility and storage efficiency. Because traditional slide cabinets were not feasible due to pace and cost constraints, we developed custom archival-quality boxes that allow slides to be stored horizontally in compact groupings organized by publication.
Used for storing slides horizontally at the Museum. Each box includes external labelling to ensure the slides remain easy to identify and retrieve.
Where slide components had deteriorated, we prioritized minimal intervention. Rather than remounting specimens, we carefully removed degraded cover papers and replaced them with archival, acid-free materials, preserving the original mounts and avoiding unnecessary handling of fragile specimens. All label information was transcribed to maintain continuity of data.
Throughout the process, our approach emphasized stabilization over replacement, the use of archival materials, and the preservation of both specimens and their associated information.
CT Scanning
The American Museum of Natural History was amongst the first to tackle the challenge of CT scanning microfossils.
The method we developed for NSF grant #1203394 was as follows:
- Take a plastic pipette tip cone (2-20 ul) and slice the bottom or narrow tip end to make a hole slightly greater than 2mm in size.
- Take double stick tape and roll it tightly and push into base of bottom tip to block the hole.
- Pick up the microfossil using the tip of a wet brush and drop it gently into the bottom of pipette tip. The specimen lands on top of double stick tape.
- Use brush tip to arrange foram in correct orientation if possible.
- Insert pipette tip into a 3 mm NMR 8 inch glass tube.
- The wider top or cone end of the pipette tip is greater than 3mm, and prevents cone tip from falling all the way to the bottom of the 3 mm tube, thus holding it in place at the top end.
- Cover wide top open end of pipette tip with tape to prevent specimen from falling out.
- After scanning, pull out cone tip gently.
- Lay tip on large sheet of paper or tray.
- Gently pull the double stick tape out of the bottom hole. The specimen will glide out with the tape.
- Use the wet brush to gently remove specimen from the sticky tape and carefully position the specimen back into slide.
Invertebrate Paleontology Collections Highlights
