Deep Time Fossil Atlas

Read the record. Look closer.

Search the unified archive by subject, organism, period, or evidence type. Every record begins in its high-resolution viewer, with all available photographic views and original tour metadata together on one page.

210 unique records1,274 high-res views5 subject paths4 duplicate folders removed

Subject

Time

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Mounted Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops skeletons isolated against black

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Dinosaur & reptile worlds · Cretaceous

Theropod and Ceratopsian dinosaurs

Tyrannosaurus rex

Age: Lived 67–66 million years ago
Locality / note: Hell Creek Formation, McCone Co., Montana
Catalog: USNM 555000

Position in deep timeLived 67–66 million years ago

PaleozoicMesozoicCenozoic

538.8 MaPresent

Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District and The Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University

Triceratops horridus

Lived 68–66 million years ago

Lance Formation, Niobrara Co., Wyoming

USNM 2100, 4842, and others

Two famous dinosaurs meet in a carefully reconstructed evidence scene. Bone shape, tooth wear, injuries, posture, and the limits of the fossil record all influence how the encounter is interpreted.

Look closely

Which details are direct fossil evidence, and which parts of the scene are scientific reconstruction?

Record sourcesSmithsonian fossil list ↗Official geologic time chart ↗

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The complete archive

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210 results

A more useful front door

One archive. Many ways through it.

Search by nameFind organisms, scientific names, periods, ecosystems, and evidence without moving through a nested scene list.

Follow a subjectMove through dinosaurs and reptiles, mammals, ancient seas, plants and ecosystems, or the methods used to read Deep Time.

Travel through timeFilter the same collection through the Cenozoic, Mesozoic, Paleozoic, or the methods that connect the record.

Play the amber scavenger huntSearch 40 panorama scenes for glowing amber, reveal 90 discovery cards, and keep every find in your Field Cabinet.Enter the panoramic fossil hallReturn to the complete panoramic environment and see how these individual records fit into the exhibition around them.

Jurassic paleoart mural showing Diplodocus in a rainy landscape

Science made visible

The art is part of the interpretation.

Reconstructed environments are produced through collaboration among scientists, muralists, sculptors, model makers, writers, and designers. Each scene must distinguish what the evidence directly preserves from the informed choices required to make an ancient world visible.

Paleoart does not simply decorate the fossils. It makes visible the reasoning required to move from incomplete evidence to an organism living within an ecosystem.

Exhibition fact sheet and artist credits