This is a 310-million-year-old fossil tree stump in sandstone at a roadcut in Martin County, Kentucky. The tree was an ancient Scale Tree (the extinct Lepidodendron) that belong to a group of plants called lycopods. Modern lycopods (e.g., ground pine) are only about one foot tall; some Scale Trees grew to be about 150 feet tall. They are called Scale Trees because their limbs had leaf-scar patterns that look like scales of a snake. Image Copyrighted by Don Chesnut, 1996.

MUSEUM MISSION

To promote the natural sciences in Kentucky through (1) preservation of specimens representing our natural heritage, (2) research to find out more about our natural history, and (3) education to teach important concepts of the natural sciences and the interrelationship between the natural environment and life in the past, present, and future. Special emphasis will be placed on traveling exhibits to be installed at selected regional sites in order to serve the entire Commonwealth.

Features

Major features or components of the central museum would be:

Preservation: to include both research collections as well as exhibit and educational collections.

A. Scientifically recognized repositories; properly housed in an environment which will best preserve the specimens; properly catalogued, labeled, and entered into an electronic relational database. Specimens should be easily retrievable from the collections.

B. Collections will include such diverse components as rocks, minerals, fossils, archaeological artifacts, zoological specimens, and herbarium-type collections.

C. Facilities should also include preparatory equipment, furniture, lab area etc. for researchers and preparators (see below).

Research: primarily on Kentucky specimens and Kentucky localities.

A. Will need research areas contiguous with each collection type, including proper equipment, a few wet labs with hoods, photographic centers and dark room, research library, computer terminals.

B. Will also need access to loading dock and preparatory areas (described below).

Exhibit construction

A. Should be large area for construction of museum and traveling exhibits.

B. Also need loading dock, hoist devices, full shop, drafting facilities (computer aided), dirty preparatory area, spray paint and epoxy areas (fumes), dermestid room(?).

Exhibitry and Educational Facilities

A. Permanent exhibits to include archaeology/anthropology, botany, geology/geophysics, paleontology, zoology; special exhibits on ecology (autoecology, synecology, paleoecology), and the progression of life (evolution). Future exhibits, after expansion, might include astronomy, climatology/meteorology, oceanography, planetary geology, and other specialties. Style of exhibits would be both 1. interactive, live, and 2. static, classic museum exhibits

B. Large area set aside for temporary exhibits (such as Dinamation)

C. Various sizes of meeting rooms, suitable for multiple sessions (e.g. annual meeting site for Kentucky Academy of Science)

D. Theatre

E. Children's area and computer games concerning natural sciences

F. Interactive collections area(?)

G. Studio for preparation of videos and television shows(?)

H. Contingency for observatory, aquarium, spider room, bat cave, etc.(?).