Fernbank Museum Press Kit
As Fernbank's permanent exhibition A Walk Through Time in Georgia journeys through the diverse landforms found in Georgia, it reveals both the history of the Earth and the evidences of prehistoric events that can be found in our present surroundings. From the Big Bang Theory to the future of the planet, this signature exhibition illustrates the planet's history using Georgia's landscape, vegetation, wildlife and fossil record.
By learning about the state of Georgia and the history of its six diverse landform regions, visitors in turn understand the Earth's incredible transformations and the plant and animal developments that have resulted with the change in their habitats over millions of years.
Various galleries incorporating landscapes, plants, animals and scientific principles place visitors within the visual concept of the topics.
COSMOS THEATER
The journey begins with a brief orientation film that explains connections between the past and the present using the Big Bang Theory. This event took place 15 billion years ago, when an explosion unleashed forces of incredible intensity and ferocity, creating among other things, the Earth.
PIEDMONT REGION
The first stage of the Earth's life is highlighted with the Piedmont region. During the first few billion years of the Earth's existence, the planet was a hot, bubbling mass of molten rock, which eventually cooled and formed the Earth's diverse landscape. The oldest rocks in Georgia are found in the Piedmont region, dating back as far as 1.5 billion years. A section within the Piedmont region displays the types of rocks found on earth and describes how they are dated.
Along the Piedmont's rocky terrain, visitors will spot turkeys, chipmunks, owls and snakes among ferns, oak trees, dogwoods and lilies in this springtime recreation of a granite outcrop in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS
The Appalachian Mountains of Northeast Georgia are the result of large, rugged mountains that have eroded over the past 250 million years into old, rounded mountains. They formed when Europe and Africa collided with North America. Visitors may spot a red squirrel, a snapping turtle, a black bear and a hawk in their natural habitat, which includes ferns, Rhododendron, yellow birch, sourwood and dog hobble.
LIFE BEGINS ON EARTH
The first signs of life on Earth are explained through a DNA model that illustrates the chemical genetic code of
life and computer-generated models of atoms and molecules. Plant and animal cell models detail their similarities
and differences. As visitors learn about the first life forms, basic biochemical processes explain how life might
have begun.
This gallery is set alongside three regional recreations in Georgia: The Piedmont, The Appalachian Mountains, and the Ridge and Valley. Like the rest of Georgia, these areas were underwater three billion years ago when early life developed in the oceans.
LIFE DEVELOPS IN ANCIENT SEAS
With the understanding of life's basic building blocks, visitors journey through 300 million years of Georgian history when most of the area was under water. Dramatic dioramas represent five geological periods of time, from the development from the first simple life forms, such as sponges and worms, to modern fish that can be found today.
Interactive stations demonstrate what fossils are and how they are formed while models depict the sequence of events necessary for the preservation of prehistoric remains and the discovery of fossils millions of years later.
Fossils from early aquatic life are abundant in Northwestern Georgia. Northern Georgia rose above sea level 500 million years ago with the uprising of the Appalachian Mountains.
THE RIDGE AND VALLEY
Organisms, such as shelled animals that lived between 300 and 500 million years ago, transitioned from ocean to land after the formation of the Ridge and Valley region. Fossils of amphibian tracks and ferns, as well as coal deposits from a 300-million-year-old swamp, have been found in the Ridge and Valley region.
The modern-day depiction of the Ridge and Valley region emphasizes the familiar site of layered rock strata found in Georgia. Because the Ridge and Valley was under shallow seas about 400 million years ago, the area contains a rich assortment of sedimentary rocks infused with ancient sea fossils.
As the limestone terrain in the subsurface layers becomes leached from the Valley floors, caves form habitats for large populations of bats as depicted in this region. Outside the caves, crows, woodchucks, red fox, lizards and copperhead snakes thrive in their surroundings of goldenrod, black-eyed Susans, poison ivy, chestnut oaks, hickory trees and pines.
CUMBERLAND PLATEAU
The Cumberland Plateau features a wintry scene featuring a waterfall and illustrating the canyon formations in Northwest Georgia.
At a depth of 1,000 feet, Cloudland Canyon is the jewel of the Cumberland Plateau with limestone and sandstone walls that date to the ancient seas. An abundance of cardinals, mink, white-tailed deer, muskrats and cottontails can be found among the ferns, Virginia pines and oak trees in this scene.
LIFE ADAPTS TO LAND
Amphibians eventually began to creep from the ocean onto land. While north Georgia was under shallow seas, south Georgia's mountainous land began to erode into marshlands. The Life Adapts to Land gallery incorporates the Infinity Diorama, a display that follows the timeline of plants, insects and vertebrates as they adapted to land, with the Plate Tectonics Theater, which discusses continental collision, the "supercontinent" Pangaea and the massive continental plates that remain in constant motion today.
THE RULING DINOSAURS
The Ruling Dinosaurs Gallery introduces visitors to the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, when today's central Georgia was a low, swampy area and vertebrates, like dinosaurs, adapted to land. Most dinosaur fossils found in Georgia are from creek beds near Columbus. In this gallery, Tyrannosaurus rex, a large meat-eating dinosaur dominates a series of three murals, which depict vegetation, landscape, animals and species behavior.
As dinosaurs perished, the development of birds and mammals intensified. Strong evidence exists shows some birds descended from dinosaurs, as represented by an Archaeopteryx fossil replica found within the groundwork.
THE RISE OF BIRDS AND MAMMALS
A giant ground sloth recreation towers above visitors beside the real skull fossil, found in South Georgia's Frederica River. The gallery discusses the characteristics of mammals and explores the various environments they inhabit on land, in the air and in the sea. As mammals developed, humankind migrated to Georgia. An interactive wall diagram shows the time period and migration paths of humankind from Africa to Georgia.
THE COASTAL PLAIN
The Coastal Plain is represented with two of the diverse environs found within the region: the Okefenokee Swamp and the Coast and Barrier Islands. The mixture of the geophysical regions within the Coastal Plain is due to continental migration, suggesting South Georgia was once attached to West Africa. Fossils from rock samples in the Coastal Plain match certain fossils from the same time period in rock samples from West Africa, but they are not found in any other areas of Georgia.
The Costal Plain has varied habitats and inhabitants, including the wild boar, gray fox, squirrels, armadillo, dove, indigo snake, gopher, rattlesnake and crows, which live in the sandy setting amid wire grass, saw palmetto, lichens, ferns, pines, oaks and pitcher plants. The diverse region includes the Okefenokee Swamp, marshlands, and coast and barrier islands.
OKEFENOKEE SWAMP
This gallery captures a slice of the nearly 600-mile expanse of swampland. When the swamp formed 25,000 years ago, what is now the Trail Ridge on the eastern edge of the Okefenokee Swamp was a marine sandbar that slowly grew into a barrier island.The land on the west side slowly filled and became the spring-fed Okefenokee Swamp. Along the creaky wooden bridge walkway, alligators, snapping turtles, water moccasins, blue herons, owls, raccoons, otters, a black vulture and a bobcat creep through the water, cypress trees, black gums and water lilies of the Okefenokee Swamp. A day-to-night light cycle allows visitors to fully experience the sights and sounds of the swamp.
MARSHLANDS
The most recent lands of Georgia are the coast, marshlands and barrier islands. The marsh scene overlooks a setting of whimbrels, herons, marsh rabbits, crabs, painted buntings, glasswort and
wax myrtle.COAST AND BARRIER ISLANDS
Crossing beneath a life-size Live Oak tree, visitors make their way to the Cumberland Island sand dunes. While listening to the sounds of waves crashing against the shoreline, pelicans and gulls can be seen and heard flying above crabs, snakes and frogs.The tribute to Gary's Reef concludes the vast regions of Georgia, showcasing the many animals that inhabit the ocean along the state's coast. Visitors are set eye-to-eye with a sand shark, queen angel fish, red snapper, turtle, squid and moray eel.
FUTURE VISIONS
Visitors can ponder the future with state-of-the-art computer programs that allow visitors to shape the environment and see how their decisions can affect the future, aided by the knowledge of how past events have affected our world today.
###
Click here for press contact information.