During your visit to the Tate Geological Museum, learn about the Museum’s collection of over 3,000 fossil and mineral specimens as you explore its many exhibits. Gifts and keepsakes of all sorts abound in the Tate Museum Gift Shop.
Exhibits
Dee the Mammoth and the Pleistocene
Showcasing Dee the Mammoth, an 11,600 year old Columbian Mammoth who roamed the American West during the Ice Age, Dee the Mammoth and the Pleistocene exhibit explores Wyoming’s Pleistocene environment, introduces some of Dee’s contemporaries and examines the differences and similarities between mammoths, mastodons and elephants. Play Pleisto-Scene Investigation to determine how the mammoth died or follow the Timeline of Discovery, chronicling the events leading up to and occurring after the skeleton’s discovery. Videos and photos within the exhibit will provide more in-depth information on the life and times of Dee the Mammoth.
Hall of Minerals
Located in the north of the Tate Geological Museum is the Hall of Minerals. Learn about mineral types, diagnostic mineral features, silicates and non-silicates. Additional displays explore Wyoming’s extractive resources and the state gemstone, Jade.
Walk through Time
Walk in the footsteps of the Holocene hunter or learn how Earth was formed in Walk Through Time. Throughout the exhibit you will come across different drawers with fossils inside. Be sure not to miss the T.rex tooth and the trilobites along the way.
Mesozoic Marine
Learn about the underwater world that existed in Wyoming during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods in Mesozoic Marine. During the periods Wyoming’s warm, tropical seaways were home to marine animals and plants such as ammonites, belemnites, crinoids, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs and hybodont sharks.
Mesozoic Terrestrial
Mesozoic Terrestrial explores the Triassic, the Jurassic and the Cretaceous periods. As you make your way through the exhibit stand next to a Torosaurus leg, see how big an Apatosaurus foot is, check out the size of an Allosaurus claw, or have a face-off with Stan the T rex. Several Cretaceous dinosaurs including Hadrosaur, Dead Sheep 148, portions of Gret the Triceratops and other Cretaceous creatures can be found in Cretaceous Corner. Mesozoic Terrestrial’s aerial display introduces the pterosaurs that called Wyoming home.
Eocene of Wyoming
Explore 50 million year old fossils in Eocene of Wyoming. Among the exhibit are fossils mostly from Wyoming including crabs, turtles, fish, mammals, birds and feathers, crocodiles and alligators, and plant pieces.
Be sure to stop by the Tate Museum Gift Shop. T-shirts, books, videos, jewelry, gems, cups, hats and toys unique to the Tate Geological Museum and Wyoming are available to purchase. Additionally, Tate Museum Gift Shop sells a limited number of Dee the Mammoth bronze sculptures created exclusively for the Tate Museum by artist Chris Navarro.
Travel Tip
- The Tate Geological Museum is ADA complaint.