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Life-sized
Albertosaur, a flesh eating thermopod dinosaur.
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Photo courtesy San Diego Natural History Museum
California’s
landscape millions of years ago wasn’t dotted
with tall buildings or crisscrossed by miles of
highways. Instead, there were acres of lush
tropical forest populated by animals and plants.
Many of these plants and animals are now extinct
and many Californians are unaware of their
state’s incredible prehistoric legacy. Now
though, Californians will be able to learn about
this aspect of the state’s history thanks to a
grant from the California
Cultural and Historical Endowment (CCHE),
an agency the California State Library currently
hosts.
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Artist
Bill Monteleone, creates one of many
replicas for San Diego Natural History
Museum.
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The
CCHE board awarded a $2,887,500 grant to the San
Diego Natural History Museum to create the
only museum gallery in California that gives a
comprehensive overview of the unique fossils,
minerals, and other artifacts from California’s
prehistoric past. These fossil and geological
specimens, collected by the San Diego Natural
History Museum’s paleontologists and geologists
from sites throughout California, literally
chronicle the formation of the state.
The gallery exhibits will use the museum’s
specimens, together with full-sized animal
fabrications, to showcase California’s natural
heritage. Visitors will learn the history of the
forces that shaped
the biological and environmental changes that
occurred during California’s prehistoric past
and the history of more recent forces and events
that have shaped the state’s present physical
and natural environment.
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34-foot
model of the Megalodon, the largest shark
that ever lived.
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Photos courtesy San Diego Natural History
Museum
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The
Main Gallery, when completed in late-2006, will
house a 34-foot model of the Megalodon, the
largest shark that ever lived. There will also be
exhibits of the small animals that lived during
the Pleistocene Era, 10,000 to 70,000 years ago.
Visitors will have the opportunity to be immersed
in the tropical forests that existed during the
Eocene Era, some 45 million years ago. In this
exhibit, visitors will see not only pictures of
the Eocene, but will stand in a realistic setting
that provides the sights, sounds and smells of a
tropical environment. There will also be a
life-sized Albertosaur, a flesh eating theropod
dinosaur of the Cretaceous Era, about 75 million
years ago. Similar exhibits will highlight fossils
and rock forms associated with the Miocene Era (5
to 24 million years ago) and Pliocene Era (1.8 to
5 million years ago).
For
more information about the CCHE please call Diane
Matsuda, CCHE executive officer at 916-651-8769 or
email dmatsuda@library.ca.gov.
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