Regional collection

The holdings collected by Augusto Gansser (1919–2012) during his almost eighty-year research career and bequeathed to the Earth Science Collection are particular noteworthy.

Besides the important collection from the first "Swiss Expedition to the Himalayas" in Tibet and Nepal with Arnold Heim (1936), numerous specimens stem from his research trips to Ladakh, Bhutan, Tibet, Nepal, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Greenland, Colombia, and Patagonia.

Otto Appert spent twenty-five years working as a missionary and naturalist in Madagascar, during which time he collected numerous fossilised specimens, some of which are probably extinct today. He discovered new aquatic plants and some Permian Glossopteris flora from Madagascar. These fossils were bequeathed to the Earth Science Collection.