The Quaternary and Palaeobotanical Collections 

Historical reasons have brought a number of diverse collections together in this section.

The two collections contain a total of about 10-20,000 specimens.

On the photo to the left is seen: 
Cast of an approx. 15 mio year-old pine cone (Pinus herningensis). The cone appeared when we poured some rubber into a cavity in a younger rock. This fine cone is on display in the exhibition about the Geology of Denmark.

The Quaternary Collection -
contains examples of Danish Ice Age and interglacial sediments, especially from the Eemian and Holsteinian interglacials. These collections stem from the 18 and early 19 hundreds, and comprise meltwater, aeolian, lacustrine and telmatic sediments. However, the main part of the Quaternary collections are the molluscs. The mollusc collection comprises Danish interglacial faunas from classical localities, and large collections of Holocene and interglacial molluscs from Greenland, including the 2.3 ma old Kap København Formation. In recent years this has been augmented by a large material of mollusc faunas from Svalbard and - especially - northern Russia and Siberia.

The palaeobotanical collection

The most well-known part of these collections is no doubt the well preserved leaves, fruits, seeds, and stems from gymnosperms and warm temperate angiosperms, which have been preserved in lignite and shales at the famous Atanikerdluk locality and other nearby sites on the Nuussuaq Peninsula in West Greenland. The fossils date from the Upper Cretaceous and Paleocene, and the succession reflects the early development of the angiosperms at c. 70 ma ago. These specimens, which had been collected by Danish expeditions to the area in the early 18 hundreds, were made famous by the Swiss scientist Oswald Heer who described and depicted them in his classical works from the late 18 hundreds, and many later contributions.

Other important collections are those from the "Scoresby Sund flora" from Jameson Land in East Greenland. These samples were collected and described the British palaeontologist Thomas Harris in a series of classical publications in the 1920 and 1930ies. The flora dates from the Triassic-Jurassic transition, c. 200 ma ago.

From the younger part of the time scale the remarkably well preserved twigs, cones, leaves, and stems from the Kap København Formation reflect the vegetation in the extreme north c. 2.3 ma ago - at the onset of the ice ages. This material was described by Ole Bennike in the 1990ies.

From more southerly parts of the realm we have large collections from lignite pits, which no longer exist: the Jurassic (c. 200 ma) flora from Bornholm, and Miocene (c. 15 ma) floras from lignite pits in Jutland.

Laboratory and photographic facilities are available for visitors to the collections. 

Curators:

Svend Funder
Kurt Kjær