Tate Geological Museum
A college museum uses dinosaurs, marine reptiles, Ice Age mammals, minerals, and a visible preparation lab to tell Wyoming’s long environmental history.
Artwork inspired by Hans Kleiber
Casper College’s free museum is unusually close to the work of paleontology: Displays of minerals, marine reptiles, dinosaurs, and Ice Age mammals share the building with staff, student learning, collections care, and a preparation lab. The signature specimen is “Dee,” an approximately 11,600-year-old Columbian mammoth discovered nearby and described by the college as among the oldest and most complete of its kind in North America.
Do not stop at Dee. “Lee Rex,” a substantial Tyrannosaurus rex found and prepared through Tate fieldwork, connects the gallery to Wyoming’s Lance Formation and to the museum’s continuing public digs. Follow the cases from ancient seas through Cretaceous ecosystems to Pleistocene grasslands, then ask staff how a jacketed field specimen becomes stable enough to study and display.
- Signature
- Dee the Mammoth
- Setting
- Casper College
- Admission
- Free
Quick guide
- Wyoming from ancient seas
- Follow Wyoming from ancient seas to Ice Age plains.
- Do not miss
- Dee the mammoth and local fossil discoveries.
Read the collection at Tate Geological Museum
- Opening question
- Follow Wyoming from ancient seas through the Lance Formation to Ice Age grasslands.
- Wyoming from ancient seas
- Compare Dee the mammoth with Lee Rex; their completeness and field histories are as important as size.
- Evidence to test
- Study the preparation lab for matrix removal, stabilization, repair, and the evidence left visible.
- Conditions check
- Ask staff about a specimen’s exact Wyoming formation, excavation, and whether displayed material is original or cast.
Good to know
The Tate is a working college museum. Ask whether the T. rex Annex is open; a special-event annex tour does not prove ordinary access. Multi-day Dinosaur Digs are separate, capacity-limited programs and should not be confused with free museum admission.
Notice these
- Dee the Mammoth
- Casper College
- Dee the mammoth and local fossil discoveries.