Florida Fossils: Evolution of Life & Land

Florida Fossils: Evolution of Life & Land

The entrance to the hall showcases six fossil  jaws, ranging in height from 2–9 feet. The exhibition begins with five extinction events described in dioramas that lead visitors onto the Florida Platform at about 65 million years ago, also known as the Dawn of the Displays include a primitive-toothed whale in the Eocene, a pig-like, extinct mammal from the Oligocene, a Miocene being attacked by two saber-toothed, cat-like animals, a 15-foot (4.6 m)-tall sloth standing on its hind legs in the Pliocene area and a 500,000-year-old chasing a peccary from the Pleistocene epoch. The time periods also include artwork by paleoartists from around the world, including a 9-foot (2.7 m)-tall steel sculpture of an extinct Terror Bird,

Located in Powell Hall, the $2.5 million, 5,000-square-foot (460 m²) exhibit describes the history of the Florida Platform through five geologic time periods. The exhibition takes visitors on a walk through time beginning in the epoch, when Florida was underwater. Visitors travel through the  and epochs and see Florida's first land animals, evolving grasslands and savannahs and the land bridge between North and South America that formed about 3 million years ago. The exhibit ends with the arrival of the first humans in Florida near the end of the Pleistocene.