Submitted Abstract
Have you ever dreamed of diving into a lost world and discovering ancient creatures? Fossils are the tangible proof that such worlds existed but they are often fragmentary and difficult to interpret for the lay public. Although palaeontology, the science of ancient life, holds the key to unlock the fossil record, science outreach using traditional graphical aids only provides glimpses into the evidence compiled by the experts. What if you could simply immerse yourself in ancient worlds reconstructed using palaeontological evidence and explore past life as if you were actually watching it thrive?The palaeontology department at the Luxembourg Natural History Museum (MnhnL) uses a collection of exceptionally well-preserved fossils from the Jurassic of Luxembourg to create a fully immersive, interactive virtual reality experience of the ancient ocean that covered present-day Luxembourg some 180 million years ago. The public will not only gain unpreceded access to a lost world, diving eye to eye with extinct marine reptiles, but will also discover how 3D-scans of fossils and several decades of scientific research, also by MnhnL palaeontologists, allow to reconstruct ancient life in breathtaking detail.