Introduction

Welcome to the website that explores fossils in the architecture of Washington, D.C. The fossil displays at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History are famous, but they are not the only exhibits in town. Outside the Museum’s doors, countless fossils are on public display. – fossils built into the city’s walls, floors and even landscape architecture.

Unintentionally, the city’s builders have assembled a diverse and public display of fossils, providing windows into ancient environments spanning more than 500 million years

Together, these fossils form D.C.’s “Accidental Museum of Paleontology.”

To make the Accidental Museum accessible to the public requires only some identification and background. That is the purpose of this website.