ITHACA, N.Y. — The Museum of the Earth offers unique natural history displays, science exhibitions and educational programming to the public who visit the museum on Trumansburg Road in Ithaca, but behind the scenes, the building also holds more than seven million artifacts in a research collection for scientists around the world to use.
The research collection at the museum, which is run by the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI), houses modern and fossil specimens and is one of the top ten largest paleontology collections in the United States.
But the museum, with all the artifacts it holds, is in danger is closing.
Unfulfilled monetary pledges
Over $30 million dollars in pledges from the last few years and long-term commitments haven’t been paid, leaving the museum under threat of foreclosure. In a statement from PRI about their restructuring efforts, there is no fixed timeline on closing or securing new funding to cover operating and mortgage costs.
Warren Allmon, director of PRI and the Hunter R. Rawlings III Professor of Paleontology Emeritus at Cornell University, said there is no other institution that could take the entire research collection if the museum were to close — even the Smithsonian, the federal government-created institution with 21 museums, 14 research facilities, and 21 libraries that hold millions of items.
“We don’t know exactly where it will all end up [if the museum closes],” Allmon said. “Some of it will probably be tossed, but it would have to be distributed to multiple locations. And of course, because no one has ever [moved] a collection this big before … we don’t know how much it’s going to cost or how long it’s going to take.”
The best estimate Allmon said they have is artifacts filling 25-30 tractor trailers or a 20,000 square foot, ten-foot-high warehouse. Allmon said PRI has a reserve of money to be able to pack and ship all of the items because it’s unlikely a receiving institution would have the funds for moving pieces.
“It’s too horrible to think about, but we have to think about it,” Allmon said.
The research and educational collections
Most of the research collection consists of invertebrate fossils, marine invertebrates from New York State and cretaceous mollusks, and it continues to grow. Allmon said PRI has adopted over 20 collections from other institutions over the last 30 years.
The older collections can be particularly valuable as the specimens represent places that cannot be reached anymore or don’t exist anymore due to time, human development, and weather and environmental changes.
One volunteer spent time researching how much each specimen on exhibit at the Museum of the Earth would be worth on the commercial market, searching through websites like eBay at similar artifacts for sale. The volunteer estimated that all of the fossils on display would be worth between five and $10 million. The mastodon alone was estimated to be worth $100,000 to $300,000.
Allmon said people often ask if PRI could sell some valuable fossils to help keep the museum open, but selling paleontological specimens is considered unethical; museums can only give them away or trade with other institutions.
Very rarely do museums purchase fossils either, he added. The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology does not condone the “barter, sale, or purchase of scientifically significant vertebrate fossils … unless it brings them into or keeps them within a public trust,” according to their ethics by-law.
PRI’s research collection has supported local PhD projects and undergraduate research in addition to national and global paleontological research for almost 90 years. PRI writes that most of the research using the collection focuses on using the fossils and modern species “to answer questions related to conservation paleobiology, systematics and macroevolution.”
According to the PRI release, over 1.2 million people have been reached through PRI’s online resources, which includes the digital database of the Research Collection.
Ithaca community support
Messages of support and media attention in the Ithaca community have been plentiful since the announcement of possible foreclosure. Two Cornell University students created a petition to save the research institution through Cornell University and outside source support, which has garnered 4,308 signatures as of March 7.
A National Snapshot of COVID-19 Impact on United States Museums survey fielded in 2021 and 2022 from the National Alliance of Museums found that the pandemic inflicted “profound damage” on U.S. museums. While the Museum of the Earth re-opened to the public in August 2020 and did not have to lay off staff during the pandemic, their staff was reduced by 54% by Fall 2023, according to the PRI release.
Further cuts or a pause in operations, PRI states, “would have serious revenue implications, creating further deficits instead of solving the problem,” and raising costs of PRI’s programming would go against their mission to keep programming affordable to remain accessible.
Emily Cavanaugh a Cornell University senior wrote a guest commentary titled “A Plea for the Museum of the Earth” in The Cornell Daily Sun urging people to visit the museum and for Cornell to invest.
“Invest in this place, and by extension your students and the Ithaca community,” Cavanaugh wrote to Cornell in the commentary. “With our collective support, it can continue to ignite curiosity and passion in generations of students to come.”
