Rocks, fossils donated to UMPI museum

PRESQUE ISLE – A collection of rocks and fossils has been donated to the Northern Maine Museum of Science and the geology program at the University of Maine at Presque Isle.

The collection is the result of 50 years of collecting by David C. Roberts, of Conway, N.H. Among other accomplishments, Roberts is the author of the “Peterson Field Guide for The Geology of Eastern North America,” published by Houghton Mifflin.

The donated collection includes a variety of fossils from around the country, including vertebrate fossils from Utah and Texas, invertebrate fossils from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nova Scotia, plant fossils from Illinois and most of a Pleistocene buffalo skull from Alaska.

There also are extensive rock collections, all with good documentation concerning what they are and where they were found. These materials will be used for museum display and for traveling educational aids as well as to strengthen the university paleontology teaching collection.

UMPI professor Kevin McCartney and museum volunteer Rodney Lamoreau drove to New Hampshire to recover the materials from their present storage in a circa 1800 barn.