Dear colleagues,

there is a Nature article about the importance of storing geological samples in museum collections that might be relevant for us. They focus on rock samples for geochemical samples, but the take-home-message is obviously beyond that:

https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-020-01366-w/d41586-020-01366-w.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2_hst9KcNTS420miRt9yWi4zMCkYBDpoLk_sIPoPLl-4fYxJosc2n2uKo

Two quotes that I found interesting are:

"Collections of palaeontological samples provide an analogue for the practices needed. They also show that large-scale archiving is possible."

and the financial aspect...

"We therefore reiterate that curation fees [...] should be incorporated into the budgets of research-grant proposals. [...] extra funds will be needed to meet the demand for archiving sedimentary geochemical samples."

Best regards,

Michael

_________________________________

Priv.-Doz. Dr. Michael W. Rasser

Kurator für Känozoische Invertebraten

Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Rosenstein 1, D-70191 Stuttgart, Germany

Email: michael.rasser@smns-bw.de, Fon: +49-(0)711/8936-146 | Fax: +49-(0)711/8936-100

Museum: http://www.naturkundemuseum-bw.de/forschung/palaeontology/rasser

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Rasser2

Bleiben Sie mit uns in Kontakt: Science Blog Facebook Twitter Instagram

Unterstützen Sie das Museum und werden Sie Mitglied im Förderverein!

Informationen zur Verarbeitung personenbezogener Daten nach der DSGVO durch das SMNS finden Sie hier.

Information on the use of your personal data by the SMNS find here.