The Museum of Science of the Chicxulub Crater will be ready this year

The Museum of Science of the Chicxulub Crater, a research and dissemination complex that is being built inside the Yucatan Technological Science Park (PCTY), is expected to be ready between June and September this year.

Zeus Mendoza González, liaison of the Secretariat of Research, Innovation and Higher Education (Siies), and the PCTY in Special Projects, recalled that this initiative came from a plan with a mixed fund in collaboration with UNAM, Yucatan Center for Scientific Research (CICY) ) and the Autonomous University of Yucatan (UADY).

This initiative seeks to consolidate a platform so that the studies and research generated in the Geophysical Laboratories can be exhibited and made known to society.

In this new museum, which will be a unique space of its kind in the world and will have the most up-to-date scientific support, knowledge related to the impact of a meteorite in the Yucatan Peninsula will be made available to researchers and the general public.

The complex, which is being built with an investment of 50 million pesos (2.6 million USD), has a 60% advance in its construction works.

The project will be complemented with the recently inaugurated Geophysical Laboratories of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), to make this site the most important in the country in the field of Earth Sciences.

The building will have 2, 200 square meters of construction, which will house four main exhibition rooms on the following topics:

• Universe and the Solar System
• Impact craters and Chicxulub
• Extinction of dinosaurs and appearance of first mammals
• Biodiversity, Rivers, lakes and oceans
• Biodiversity of Yucatán
• Aquifer mantle of Yucatan
• Mayan Culture

The samples will be accompanied by a wide agenda of conferences and seminars, with active researchers on the field of geological studies in Yucatan, the Gulf of Mexico and groundwater, among other topics that, in addition to generating academic tourism, will contribute to the care of the environment and understanding of the climate change phenomena that now afflicts our planet.

The rooms will be equipped with interactive screens, video mapping, didactic areas equipped with microscopes and high resolution images. In its second stage, the construction of a planetarium is contemplated.

The site will also offer an additional area to expose other topics of scientific and cultural interest.

It is also planned to use new technologies to manage the energy in the place by intelligent devices connected to a home automation network that can control and regulate, from one central console, the use of electricity with motion and infrared sensors.

The enclosure will encourage new international, multidisciplinary and long-range studies, with what is sought to attract the attention of an important mass of first level researchers, who will be conducting field work across the state.

This will open the possibility of establishing alliances with various institutions of higher education in the region to undertake joint projects.

As in Yucatan several research projects are carried out about the impact site in Chicxulub and other phenomena that will help to better understand life on Earth, experts from different parts of the world are interested in this area, which is one of the only two craters with composition of rings and peaks and that is well preserved, half on land and half underwater.

Economic impact

As part of the economic impact that the Museum will have on the Yucatecan Peninsula, employment generation is included for highly qualified professionals, dedicated both to the scientific collections that will house the Museum and to the different exhibitions that wll be featured. This will represent a direct benefit for the quality human capital that is being formed in our state.

At the same time, it will favor the economy of the country, since it will have a tourist and scientific attraction. Besides, scholarships will be granted to local and foreign students, to make stays and internships, both in the Laboratories and the Museum.

TYT Newsroom with information from:

• yucatanalamano.com
• proceso.com.mx