Department of Geology and Paleontology

Address:
Zelný trh 6,
659 37, Brno
phone: +420 533 435 222
e-mail: geologie@mzm.cz

Head of the department:

RNDr. Růžena Gregorová Ph.D.
Curator of Tertiary collection, research of Tertiary fish fauna of the West Carpathians.
phone: +420 533 435 222, e-mail: rgregorova@mzm.cz

Staff members:

RNDr. Stanislava Hrdličková - educator, curator of the Palaeozoic collection
phone: +420 533 435 221, e-mail: shrdlickova@mzm.cz
Mgr. Jana Šušolová - curator of the collection of foreign items and the Mesozoic collection
phone: +420 533 435 219, e-mail: jsusolova@mzm.cz
Olga Zouharová - librarian-documentalist
phone: +420 533 435 221, e-mail: ozouharova@mzm.cz
Karel Diviš - preparator
phone: +420 533 435 221, e-mail: kdivis@mzm.cz

Permanent exhibitions

Extinct Life in Moravia (Dietrichstein Palace)

Characteristics

The main task of the department consists in exploration and documentation of palaeontological and geological sites in Moravia and, first of all, in the management of its extensive collections. They contain fossils from more than 1000 Bohemian and Moravian localities and from over 850 foreign sites. The storerooms keep a lot of unique items from the fields of phytopalaeontology, zoopalaeontology and geology. The most important acquisitions are the collections of Primary fossils from the Barrandien, Devonian fauna from Čelechovice, Carboniferous flora from the Rosice-Oslavany basin and the Ostrava-Karviná basin, collections of Permian stegecephals from the Boskovice furrow, Mesozoic fossils from Brno and Štramberk, fossil fishes from Terciary localities in the West Carpathian region. The collection of fossil footprints from the Carpathian flysh is quite extensive. The foreign funds include Italian fossil fishes from Monte Bolca or the famous German site Solenhofen. The collection of dynamic geology contains rocks from all geological periods from the Primary to the Quaternary (volcanic bombs, petrographic rock specimens, ventifacts), karst specimens); the volcanic bombs are considered as the most important acquisition.

The collection of paintings contains mainly world famous palaeontological reconstructions by the academic painter Zdeněk Burian. This is the most complete collection of this kind in the Czech Republic.

Palaeontological collections belong to the oldest ones in the Moravian Museum, they existed already in the time of the foundation of the Francis' Museum in 1817. The basics of the collections were created by prominent Moravian aristocracts František Hugo Salm, count Josef Auersperg and count Antonín Bedřich Mitrovský.

The department's staff carries out activities aiming to the popularisation of science and co-operates with all types of schools as well as with the general public.

Research acitivities: