From the depths

Leviathans, sea angels, and giant sharks. Once, these and many other sea creatures swam around here. And what about forest elephants and water buffalo? In the deep past, they lived right where we are standing now! In the exhibition From the depths, you’ll discover how the landscape changed over millions of years and which animals lived here.

The landscape we see today has been shaped by seas, ice ages, and mighty rivers. It has changed from deep seas to tropical coasts and icy plains. Beneath our feet lie traces of these ancient worlds. Dive into the role of a paleontologist and discover bones, fossils, and other petrified treasures from the deepest layers of the earth. Which animal kingdoms will you find?

Tiny bones, grand story

There are so many more fossils underground than you might think. Often they're small and hard to spot. But it's precisely these tiny, fossilized remains that tell big stories. Until recently, researchers, collection managers, and dealers mainly looked at big skeletons. Now we know that small fossils are just as important.

These small bone fragments and other fossils show how animals lived and what their environment looked like. From a tiny finger bone, paleontologists can identify a huge sperm whale, and based on a soil profile, geologists can reconstruct entire landscapes. In this exhibition, you're challenged to look like a paleontologist and think like a geologist.

In the exhibition From the depths, you walk through the time periods after the extinction of the dinosaurs up to the last Ice Age; from 66 million years to 12 thousand years ago. The drawings by paleo-artist Nadia de Waal bring these vanished worlds to life.

Past landscapes hidden in the deep

The Netherlands is a river delta that formed because the big rivers kept depositing new sand and clay. During clay and sand excavations, they often dig tens of meters deep, which brings fossils and rocks to the surface.

Finds from these deep soil layers go back millions of years. The story you discover in this exhibition tells how life and the landscape have developed here: from warm seas full of exotic animals to the river landscape we know today.