New Mexico Geological Society Annual Spring Meeting — Abstracts

Within 18 months of going live, the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science (NMMNH&S) online paleontology database recorded over 150,000 page views from more than 10,000 visitors. Inspired by this success, the scientific, educational outreach, exhibits, and computer specialist staff at the NMMNH&S have accelerated plans to make more information available online to those interested in New Mexico’s fossil record. Accordingly, paleontological information ranging in scale and complexity from the aforementioned database to a childrens’ interactive is now available from one centralized site, www.nmfossils.org. The interactive provides diverse information on selected paleontological, mineralogical, and biological specimens. The interactive is designed to be language-independent and allows students to glean basic size, weight, age, and other information on a dozen specimens from the collections. For the professional and interested avocational paleontologist, we also added a digital bibliography of the primary literature on the vertebrate paleontology of the state, as well as, numerous downloadable (.pdf) files based on the collection and related staff research. Many of these files are of publications that are now out of print and thus otherwise nearly unavailable. Perhaps the most intriguing new feature is a “photo gallery” allowing interested parties to browse more than 1600 digital images of specimens in the collections. Planned additions include an index to the type specimens housed in the collections and improved links highlighting the paleontological wealth, resources, and history of individual countries. Together these online resources should be an invaluable asset for parties ranging from school children to geoscience professionals.