Fossils in streets and walls of Paris

By Luciano Varela, Sebastián Tambusso and Richard A. Fariña, UdelaR

Among its many attractions, Paris offers the treasures of palaeontology as developed by Cuvier and other founders of the discipline. Particularly, the pandemic retreated enough to allow us to do our secondment and visit the city in April 2022. Our work is based in that temple of knowledge called the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, where le Baron first studied the great beast found in the wide plains of South America, the Megatherium americanum.

Needless to say, our thirst for knowledge does not end in our professional interests and so we toured the city to appreciate its many wonders from other realms of human endeavour. In some places, intriguing forms in walls and floors, in bridges and famous museums (the MNHN included) caught our eye. At closer look, we were astonished to realise that many wonders of the geological past were humbly exposed in the masonry to welcome scientists arriving from distant shores, who, unlike locals, are not used to seeing those remains from the deep times when France (and other parts of Europe) were part of ancient seas.

Here we show a few of them.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Nathalie Richard (June 2, 2022). Fossils in streets and walls of Paris. SciCoMove — Scientific Collections on the Move. Retrieved May 19, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/twsn


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