Unlocking the science potential of a historic fossil collection

The National Science Foundation Division of Biological Infrastructure awarded The American Museum of Natural History $974,848 on August 1, 2026, to unlock research value from a historically significant fossil collection through rehousing, digitization, and public access.

The American Museum of Natural History received approximately 350,000 invertebrate fossils donated by Columbia University in 2022, comprising specimens such as trilobites, ammonites, and corals collected from the 1850s through the 1970s. The collection spans over half a billion years of Earth's history and contributed to foundational paleontological understanding of continental drift and sea-level change. Degraded cabinetry housing the collection for more than fifty years severely limits research and curatorial access. The award funds replacement of the cabinetry and production of specimen photographs and associated data for public release through the American Museum's online database and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, enabling broad researcher access for the first time in decades. The project includes training for undergraduate interns and an early-career project assistant in taxonomy, digitization, and generative artificial intelligence applications, along with public engagement through new web content.

The award runs through July 31, 2029, with place of performance in New York, New York. The funding supports the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074), which promotes progress in biological sciences and strengthens the Nation's scientific enterprise through basic research.

Abstract

Natural history collections preserve irreplaceable physical evidence of life on earth, but their value for science and society goes unrealized unless they are accessible to researchers, educators, and the public. This project supports the american museum of natural history (amnh) in unlocking the potential of an historically and scientifically important collection of fossils donated to the amnh by columbia university (CU) in 2022. The CU collection comprises around 350,000 invertebrate fossils such as trilobites, ammonites, and corals spanning over half a billion years of earth?s history. The collection was amassed from the 1850S to the 1970S by paleontologists and contributed to our understanding of several foundational scientific concepts, including continental drift and sea-level change through time. The degraded cabinetry that has housed the collection for more than 50 years now severely limits access for research and curation, and IT is in urgent need of RE-housing and digitization to ensure its long-term value to the biological research community. This project will enable amnh to replace the cabinetry and produce specimen photographs and data that will be shared publicly through the amnh?s online database and the global biodiversity information facility (gbif). The collection will be broadly accessible for the first time in decades, creating new research opportunities in biological sciences. IT will provide training opportunities for undergraduate interns and an early-career project assistant in stem subjects including taxonomy, digitization and the use of generative artificial intelligence, and engage a broad public audience through new web content. The CU collection is one of the most scientifically and historically important donations ever received by the division of paleontology at the amnh. IT comprises around 350,000 specimens divided into approximately 50,000 lots, collected through the extensive, meticulous fieldwork of paleontologists and geoscientists john strong newberry, amadeus william grabau and marshall KAY, their students and postdoctoral researchers, forming the basis of over 120 publications on the type specimens alone. The specimens were collected from hundreds of localities across north america and northern europe; many of which are no longer productive. During this three-year project, amnh will replace degraded storage cabinetry with new museum-grade steel cabinets and drawers; clean and RE-house specimens in archival materials; photograph approximately 50,000 specimen lots and labels; and digitize associated taxonomic, locality and stratigraphic data. Generative AI will be incorporated into the digitization workflow to increase efficiency in label transcription while maintaining curatorial oversight and quality control. The resulting catalog data and images will be uploaded to amnh?s axiell EMU collections management system and made publicly available through the amnh paleontology database and gbif, substantially improving discoverability and accessibility for researchers worldwide. The project will support contemporary research in paleontological and biological sciences, including the diversity of extinct organisms, the mechanisms driving their evolution and extinction, and the complex interactions between life and earth?s system through geological time. This project aligns with the NSF?s biotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI) priority areas. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are not planned for this award.