The Nat opens new Paleo Center inside its Balboa Park basement

BALBOA PARK The San Diego Natural History Museum The Nat is set to open its new Paleontology Center this Friday June where visitors can watch scientists work in real time The new center on the Balboa Park institution s basement floor is named after longtime employee and paleontologist Tom Dem r who has headed up the museum s paleontology division since The center has been years in the making as large specimens such as whale fossils stored in a rented Chula Vista warehouse have been moved back to the -year-old museum The museum touted the center for bringing The Nat s entire collection of over million specimens under one roof after decades apart Cases previously on the third floor moved to the new visible collection room freed up space elsewhere for exhibits Now all five stories of The Nat will have permanent exhibits on show A major part of the new center is visual storage of specimens on rolling stack shelving Visitors will be able to watch scientists at work behind glass walls and see fossilized bones like whale skulls on open shelves giving a sense of proportion to ancient creatures From Gila monsters preserved in jars and tiny bees on pins to drawers of teeth from extinct sea mammals and taxidermied desert creatures plenty of specimens are on display for the community in the exhibit gallery The exhibit called Amazement in the Basement teaches visitors how the museum cares for its collection and studies it to learn about ancient life Bison bones unveiled during demolition of Qualcomm Stadium The center also includes a new lab space giving visitors a behind-the-scenes look at fossil processing At a media preview night volunteer scientists were attentively cleaning bison bones identified during the demolition of Qualcomm Stadium in A museum group has worked to clean and preserve the specimen over the past five years to learn about ancient life in San Diego Through an open window supporters answered questions and demonstrated the process of cleaning bone fragments Work remains before scientists can flip the fossil to see the other side of the bison still in the original jacket crafted to safely shipping it The skull and vertebrae are approximately years old Museum staff speculate it is from an extinct giant species the Bison latifrons The Nat s paleontology collection is constantly growing with new specimens flowing in Already it has one the largest record of -million- and -million-year-old land mammals known from the southwestern U S as well as chosen of the only dinosaur remains in California With the new permanent exhibit in the basement visitors will have the chance to see the collection and the scientists processing it for themselves