The d’Orbigny Collection

Alcide d’Orbigny’s palaeontological collection is housed at the French National Museum of Natural History since 1858. It gathers more than 100,000 specimens, and was one of the most important palaeontological collections in the world in the middle of the 19th century (De La Bèche, 1847). Many of these specimens are the types of almost 3,000 fossil species – mainly invertebrates and microfossils – described by d’Orbigny himself (e.g., d’Orbigny, A., 1840–1860). First professor of Palaeontology at the Paris Museum, Alcide d’Orbigny is the father of two major disciplines in geosciences: biostratigraphy and micropalaeontology. He defined numerous geological stages that are still used today as chronostratigraphic world references such as Toarcian, Callovian, Oxfordian, Kimmeridgian, Aptian, Albian and Cenomanian. His pioneering biostratigraphical comparisons led to the definition of the stratotypes. His interest in microscopic creatures that he named “foraminiferans” led Alcide d’Orbigny to found a new specific discipline named “micropalaeontology”, with a major legacy in current science through the multiple implications of his work in academic research (palaeoceanographic and palaeoclimatic studies) and the economic sector (research of gas and oil deposits). A special section in his collection is dedicated to microfossils: the Sables d’Orbigny (d’Orbigny Sands) which correspond to about 800 glass bottles filled with sediment containing microfossils from around the world (Hairie et al. 2022).