Rokycany, West Bohemia, Sept 20 (CTK) – A paleontology research centre of European importance and with a collection of dozens of thousands of carbon fossils will be built in Rokycany in the months to come, co-financed from EU funds, Frantisek Fryda, head of the West Bohemian Museum in Plzen, has told CTK.
A subsidy to the project from the Integrated Regional Operational Programme (IROP) has already been approved, Fryda said.
The museum is the investor and the future operator of the centre.
Apart from the vast fossil collections, the centre will offer research premises and a lecture room to host meetings and conferences.
The Czech Republic has no such centre now, Fryda said.
The West Bohemian Museum has a large paleontological collection that has been continuously extended to include fresh finds from all over the world.
Besides the fossils from significant West Bohemian localities in the nearby Radnice and Nyrany and in central Bohemia, it has items originating from coal deposits in Saxony and China, and collections coming from Spain, Turkey and France.
It previously received a large collection from a German private collector.
The centre will be seated in a former school building taht the museum is going to reconstruct and equip accordingly.
“We must create dignified conditions for researchers and secure their access to the collections. We have been receiving lots of requests from the world for making our collections accessible,” Fryda said.
He said the reconstruction works worth 23 million crowns will start by the end of the year.
