Primeval parade, tree of life
This is the second main hall. We call it OERPARADE: primeval parade. Here time is of great significance. In the theatre of nature we show the current state of biodiversity, but in this hall we show the history of biodiversity, the history of life on earth.
Time is plotted in two ways.
In the first place it is set down along a line in the floor. This line includes information panels. The history of life is divided into a number of periods. For each period, there is one panel. Here you can find data about that period, and the reconstruction of a landscape. To the side of each panel a globe is attachted, on which the position of the continents is shown. From where we are standing now we could walk along the line into the past. The line curves just like the curl of a depression and ends at the beginning, 4700 mya (million years ago), near that rock on a pole in the centre
Secondly, time is plotted from the floor to the ceiling. With our feet, we are standing in the primeval time, 3500 mya; the ceiling is the border with the present. In between you see a lot of black tubes and discs. Together they form a model of the tree of life. Each disc stands for the common ancestor of a group of organisms. The rods represent the heritage lines.