The Jurassic Museum of Asturias (Spanish: Museo del Jurásico de Asturias; MUJA) is located in the area of Rasa de San Telmo near the parish (administrative division) of Llastres in the municipality of Colunga, Asturias, Spain. Though the municipality of Ribadesella was initially proposed, Colunga was chosen for the building site in the late 1990s. Several landmarks are visible from the museum including the Bay of Biscay, the Sierra del Sueve, and the Picos de Europa. Strategically located over a mount on the Rasa de San Temo, the museum is in the midst the Jurassic Asturias. The museum displays and collections cover 3,500 million years, and although they emphasize the three stages of the Mesozoic (Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous), information is also presented on the preceding and subsequent periods. Different stages of the Jurassic geologic period and system are on display. Corridors contain over 20 dinosaur replicas; measuring over 12 metres (39 ft) in height, their weight would exceed ten tons if the replicas were real. A rich collection of footprints and fossils found in the Asturian Jurassic coastline from ten paleontological sites are exhibited in the exposition halls and are said to be "the most complete informative and representative collection of dinosaur remains in the world." Founded March 31, 2004 and representing an investment of 12 million euros, MUJA belongs to the Asturian network of public museums. The museum's goal is to illustrate the factors involved in the composition of life on Earth. The palaeontologist José Carlos García-Ramos from the University of Oviedo leads the museum's scientific team.
Geography
The museum is located close to the coastline of the Cantabrian Sea and Llastres, a fishing port. It is bounded by the Sierra del Sueve on the south and the Picos de Europa towards the east. MUJA is on the branch road AS-257 towards Llastres, about 1.5 km away. During a visit to the cliffs of the coastline between Gijón and Ribadesella in the councils of Villaviciosa, Colunga and Ribadesella of Asturias, which is called the “Coast of Dinosaurs”, dinosaur ichnite deposits were found to be in abundance. Jurassic reptile footprints and bone were unearthed during excavations that started in 2005. Fossils found during these excavations are on display in the museum.
Architecture
The museum, which opened in 2004, was designed by the architect, Rufino Uribelarrea. The building has many special features, particularly the roof, which is in the form of a "fingerprint counter mould kittiwake, feature of the dinosaurs". The building itself is shaped in the form of a giant tridactyl dinosaur footprint. Three ellipsoidal vaults intersect to form the deck space which is a large, open area of 2,500 square metres (27,000 sq ft). The roof structure is made entirely of laminated wood, a plywood. The entire roof is covered with a copper skin plate, which has been described by the European Association for the Development of Architectural Copper as that "it gradually oxidises to dark brown colour, and then, after several years, the typical green patina of aged copper protects the building and its contents for decades, even in the aggressive marine environment." The first floor, ground floor and basement of the building are 5,000 square metres (54,000 sq ft). Three wide vaults or rooms extend to the ceiling and are divided by the Mesozoic divisions of Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Triassic. The basement houses over 400 tons of fossils that have yet to be classified. The first floor has a temporary exhibition room, a reception room, administration room, and workshops, as well as a library and a laboratory. The ground floor contains a display hall, an audio-visual room and the permanent exposition room, along with an auditorium. The service areas include a store, gardens, cafeteria, and playgrounds.
Collection
MUJA's main collection centres around 8,000 fossils from Asturias' Jurassic period. Divided into four sections, one contains 150 traces from the coast; another has 200 fossils of dinosaurs, crocodiles, fish, and tortoises; the third has 103 vegetable fossils and eleven tree trunk fragments; and the last has approximately 6,000 invertebrate fossils. A module explains the geological history of Asturias, focusing on the Jurassic Coast and the marine levels that formed the city of Gijón. Some of the replicas include a pair of copulating Tyrannosaurus rex, as well as a Giganotosaurus, one of the largest known carnivorous dinosaurs. A sickle-clawed Deinonychus is also featured. Quintueles, Oles, and Tazones specimens are housed at the MUJA. The largest of the finds from the Coast of Dinosaurs include the 82 centimetres (32 in) long footprint of a theropod dinosaur, and the smallest ichnites of sauropod dinosaurs at about 12 centimetres (4.7 in) length. Collections in the museum from the coastal finds also include 255 specimens of dinosaur ichnites. Martin Lockley, a palaeontologist of the University of Colorado Denver, states that “the collection of ichnites of the MUJA represents one of the most complete worldwide”.
The collection of vertebrates of the Jurassic period is unique. Some of the specimens on display in the museum are an incomplete skeleton of a marine crocodile, a piece of the jaw of a small ichthyosaur, a 1.25 metres (4 ft 1 in) long brachiosaurid ulna specimen(equivalent to the cubitus bone), the partial skeleton of a stegosaur, several bones of plesiosaurs, bone remnants of sea turtles (including several shells), and also specimens of several partial fish. Also on display are Jurassic fossil plants.
Triassic hall
In the Triassic hall, there are exhibits of dinosaurs as they first appeared in the Triassic period, 251 to 200 million years ago. The dinosaur reconstructions on display here include bones and footprints or ichnites. Also shown are the gastroliths (stones swallowed by some dinosaurs to crush food in their stomachs), coprolites (fossilized dung), eggs and nests. The prosauropod Plateosaurus is the largest on display here.
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