Campus Martius is open for the holidays
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Campus Martius Museum will be open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays during the holidays.
The museum will be closed Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day only.
Visitors are invited to a special preview of the developing exhibit "Permian Monsters of the Upper Ohio Valley – 50 million years before Dinosaurs" on the first floor of the museum.
In the 1960s, Permian-age amphibian and reptile remains were uncovered south of Marietta in a roadcut along Ohio Route 7. Pelycosaurs, dimetrodon and edaphosaurus were discovered along with a several amphibians, including eryops and diploceraspis. Prehistoric shark and boney fish were also found. The discovery has been described as "the greatest Permian site east of the Mississippi River."
Ohio and neighboring states looked different 299 million years ago at the beginning of the Permian Period. The landscape included swamps and coastal plains, dominated by tree ferns 100 feet tall and populated with large sail-finned reptiles and amphibians, giant winged insects, cockroaches and millipedes. The first dinosaurs would not evolve for another 50 to 60 million years in the Middle Triassic Period.
The story of Ohio's Permian past is recorded in rocks exposed in southeastern Ohio, southwestern Pennsylvania and northwestern West Virginia. These rocks contain fossils, the remains of plants, animals, and trackways, that paleontologists use to reconstruct the early Permian ecosystem.
The Campus Martius early Permian exhibit, is in the final stages of completion and has been developed under the leadership of Marietta College Professor, Dr. David Jeffery, Northwest Territory Museum Society Member Jean Yost; Guest Curator Connor Moore and Mark Peter from Ohio Geological Survey.
Admission is $7 for adults and $4 students. Members, children under 5, active-duty military and veterans and K-12 teachers are free with ID.