Gems, Minerals & Fossils: A closer look at the
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s
Earth Science Collections:
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Collection tour with Jonathan Hoffman, PhD and Robert Harbaugh
Co-sponsored by the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
Since the 2017 arrival of Jonathan M. Hoffman, PhD, as the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Dibblee Curator of Earth Science, the Museum has been upgrading its collections of vertebrate fossils, rocks, and minerals.
Mammals Magnified: The appreciation of collections-based research in the 21st century:
Thursday, November 12, 2026
Free live lecture with Ally Coconis
Co-Sponsored by the Solvang Library
Research collections in natural history museums are important repositories of biological specimens, providing vast datasets for studies of ecological shifts across space and time. More recently, there has been a great expansion in the use of collections through both increased digitization efforts and the growth of molecular and chemical techniques in ecology. This has led