The South Dakota School of Mines and Technology will break ground Tuesday, April 7, for the Paleontology Research Center, a project that will change the future of one the world's finest fossil collections. South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds will attend.
The ceremony will be held at 1:30 p.m. in the area between the King Center and the Black Hills Business Development Center on the School of Mines campus. Refreshments will be served immediately afterward in the Christensen Hall of Fame, located in the King Center.
Paleontology at the School of Mines has been an integral part of the university for more than 100 years. Currently, the Museum of Geology houses about 300,000 fossil specimens, one of the largest collections in the United States and some of the best scientifically documented in the world. The collections support education and research for the university's faculty and students and researchers around the world.
The 33,000-square-foot Paleontology Research Center will provide a safe, environmentally-controlled environment for the Museum of Geology's fossil, geological and archival collections, assuring the protection of this rich heritage. In addition, the Center will house laboratories for the preparation, preservation and geochemical research involving the collections.
The Center will provide a state-of-the art educational environment for faculty and students who will use the collections as a resource library to study the past to help answer current questions such as effects of climate change, overpopulation, invasive species and more. A key feature of the Center will be open viewing of the laboratories so the public can see the steps needed to take a fossil from the ground to a museum exhibit.
While the groundbreaking is not open to the public, media are invited to attend.
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