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Display Collection of Earth Sciences

The museum collection of the Departments of Geology as well as Mineralogy and Petrography, which was redesigned in 2019, is entitled "Past for Future" and aims to create scenarios for the future by breaking down and understanding the past. This undertaking also includes the investigation of processes or states that are ahistorical per se, but which can play a role in the historical context and thus also in future scenarios. Ultimately, the exhibition is intended to convey less specialist knowledge and more to arouse interest.

It is assumed that the first head of the institute, Adolf Pichler, had already established partial collections with different main topics (e.g. bed load of the Inn glacier, fossils of the Höttinger Breccia in Innsbruck). Scientifically important collections, most of them started as early as the 19th century - such as the fossils of the Ichtyol shales of Seefeld - continued to grow over time. In addition, more and more individual pieces and small collections were added, which were taken during scientific fieldwork, collection campaigns and occasionally by student excursions, as well as donations from collectors.

Over the years, the corpus of objects not formally inventoried into the collection grew steadily. In the early 2000s, the Institute of Mineralogy and Petrography started a campaign with the help of collectors to reinvent the mineralogical and petrographical part of the collection and to set up an exhibition of selected minerals and rocks. From 2014 to 2018, the geological-palaeontological collection was reinvented and an exhibition concept was created and implemented. The exhibition is kept simple in terms of design and has simple, concise labels. Visitor groups are always guided by experts. The exhibition of objects is supplemented by moving, interactive and "hands-on" installations, and is intended to be both vivid and entertaining, especially for schoolchildren.