BP Amoco, plc, recently donated several large fossil collections to a number of North American universities. The donated fossils come from the collections of the former Amoco Production Company, having been assembled and curated by Amoco personnel prior to the December, 1998 merger of British Petroleum with Amoco. The purpose of this announcement is to briefly describe the various collections and identify their recipients. Insofar as the donated fossils now are housed in public institutions, they and associated records are accessible to the greater scientific community. We encourage the use of these fossils in scholarly research. The donated fossils include sizable collections of conodonts, Paleozoic foraminifera (thin sections), palynomorphs, calcareous nannoplankton, Mesozoic-Cenozoic foraminifera (picked slides), and megafossils, with subordinate numbers of diatoms, radiolaria, and ostracods. The bulk of the donated material is from surface locations and research boreholes (e.g., JOIDES, DSDP, ODP, state and federal survey cores), whereas most specimens from oil and gas wells have been retained to protect confidentiality and competitive advantage. The donated fossil collections are accompanied by two types of paper records, as follows: #### Taxon folders Within the former Amoco nomenclatural system, each taxon was assigned a unique number to facilitate record keeping and the digital manipulation of biostratigraphic data. The morphologic concept behind each unique taxon, whether an informal Amoco entity or a validly published name, is anchored by taxonomic information contained within a taxon folder. Such information typically includes a taxonomic description, illustrations, and reference to an Amoco …