Science|An Engine of Fossil Discovery Fights Its Own Extinction

At the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, N.Y., visitors wander through extinct ecosystems that start at the dawn of complex life on Earth and then run to the steppes of ice age mastodons.

But the museum now faces a battle for its survival as a financial crisis threatens to permanently shutter it. The Paleontological Research Institution, a hub for paleontologists all over the world that established the museum in 2003, is also at risk.

Since it was formed nearly a century ago, the institution has amassed more than seven million fossils, one of the largest troves in North America. The collection will be broken up and scattered to new owners if P.R.I. cannot cover its debts.

“No one has ever experienced trying to rehouse a collection like this,” said Warren Allmon, the director of the institution and a professor of paleontology at Cornell University. “If we had to close, there would be no one institution that could take all the collection.”

For decades, the museum has relied on a single, anonymous donor who provided $20 million, and pledged $30 million in the future, to pay its mortgage and establish an endowment. But in 2022, the promised payments dried up as the benefactor experienced financial struggles.

In response to the sudden shortfall, P.R.I. halved its budget and staff in 2024. Later that year, fearing imminent closure, Dr. Allmon publicized the institution’s woes. The news inspired an avalanche of donations, including a $1 million gift from an unnamed Cornell alum.