Collections from the Indonesian Archipelago at the NMB
The NMB holds various collections of rock samples (plutonic and volcanic rocks, ores, sediments, macro- and microfossils) from the Indonesian Archipelago. Materials were collected by numerous Swiss like Tobler, Schmid, Buxtorf, Hotz, Weber, and other geologists (Van der Vlerk, Pannekoek) during the first halh of the twentieth century, many in connection with petroleum exploration, see map [source: Maps archive, Indonesian Archipelago, map roll#21]. Examples are the Kutei Basin of the district of Kalimantan, eastern Borneo, while other materials comes from Java, Celebes and Ceram [ for more recent studies from Kutei area refer, for example, to Lambert & Laporte-Galaa (2005) , for a historical summary of the development in Ceram see Ruf, H., 1949].
Unfortunately, the material, is still in a preliminary curatorial state, with numbered specimens and mostly labelled with a short note about the location, date and the finder, but without giving references to published articles. Part of these collections, some of which being important for taxonomy, have been published in regular Swiss journals (Eclogae Geologicae Helvetiae), or journals from elsewhere, various books, private reports, and there also exist topographic and geological maps from these Indonesian regions, that are archived at the museum, in particular the maps archive of Fritz Weber.