PLAYING WITH MODELS IN DEEP TIME – OLD-FASHIONED AND INNOVATIVE

Fossils are the real, tangible and cherished objects upon which we rest our understanding of the history of life. They are also the basis for a considerably more artistic enterprise – that of envisioning the landscapes of the past and how organisms interacted on those landscapes. As part of the new fossil halls to open at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in early June 2019 we are creating ten scale models of past terrestrial ecosystems, each representing a well-known site or set of sites from a particular geological formation. There will two models of the Carboniferous (one dry tropical and one wet tropical to represent interglacial and glacial states, respectively), and one each for the Permian (Clear Fork Grp.),Triassic (Chinle Fm.), Jurassic (Morrison Fm.), Cretaceous (Hell Crk. Fm.), Paleogene (Willwood Fm.), and Neogene (Harrison Fm.). There will also be Eemian (interglacial) and last glacial maximum models based on evidence from near Big Bone Lick, Kentucky. Each model relies on a review of published literature on the plant and animal fossils from the time and place, as well as descriptions of the depositional environments and paleoclimate. Model scales range from 1:20 to 1:15, varying according the size of the organisms being featured. Each model will be housed within an elliptical cylinder with a diorama painted on the inside of the curved wall. There will be glass on both ends (sides) to reduce visitor crowding.

In order to make the models look more real we had to decide not only on time and place, but also season of the year, time of day, interactions among organisms, and a story about the time leading up to the model scene that justifies the landforms seen in the model and painted backdrop. Around the perimeter on the outside of the model case there will be ‘magnified’ images of organisms and objects that are too small to portray in the model itself. Planning and guiding the construction of the models has been a painstaking process, but we hope the models will capture the imaginations of children and adults who are visual learners, and who, like some paleontologists, enjoy playing with models.