Record searches
The UC Museum of Paleontology maintains a database for its collections and conducts record searches for qualified contractors and environmental consultants for a nominal fee. For all fossil collections based locality information and paleontology sensitivity requests, please submit an email to: ucmplocalitysearch@berkeley.edu. Many UCMP invertebrate localities are not geo-referenced in the database so computerized record searches are not possible for these collections at the current time.
UCMP charges a minimum fee of $500 for record searches. This fee assumes the site of interest occurs on a single 7.5′ topographic quadrangle (or up to four contiguous sheets). Additional information is billed at a flat rate of $500/4 contiguous topo sheets. For larger projects, you can estimate your bill by dividing the number of topo sheets by 4 x $500. You can also access the UCMP database online. Please note, the UCMP website does not serve longitude/latitude data or detailed locality information for fossil sites on private property. In addition, detailed locality information for U.S. public lands may also be unavailable due to current government regulations regarding the management of paleontological resources. Locality information is served to the public at the county level only using Berkeley Mapper. In most cases, this is sufficient for preliminary evaluations of paleontological resources within or near a construction project.
Record search requests must contain the map coordinates or a map of the project area. Email, contact and billing information are required. Requests without this information will be returned. No large files please. If the project area is greater than four adjacent quadrangles, an estimate of the cost based on the physical scope of the project area can be provided. After the search results are provided to the contractor by UCMP, the contractor will receive an invoice issued by the Berkeley Natural History Museum administrative office. If after receiving the results, a visit to the collections is necessary, there is a separate $800/day fee for access to the UCMP paper records and collections. Computer record searches by the UCMP staff will not be performed as part of this visit. All visits to the UCMP collections must be arranged in advance with the appropriate collections manager.