Introduction

The Museum of Tomorrow, inaugurated in December 2015 by the Rio de Janeiro City Hall and during the 2016 Olympics, was one of the attractions of the event called the Olympic Boulevard of Porto Maravilha, in the historic center of the city. The imposing building, located near the Rio Art Museum (MAR), was built on Pier Mauá, in an area of ​​15,000 m2, presenting organic forms, inspired by the bromeliads of the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden. On the outside it is surrounded by reflecting pools, gardens, a bike path and a leisure area, in a total area of ​​34,600 m2. Inside it has an auditorium with about 400 seats, a shop, an educational space, a cafeteria and a restaurant (Museum of Tomorrow, 2015) (Figure 1).

The project, with a sustainable argument, was designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and features better use of the region's natural resources. The water used to supply the reflecting pools and the museum's cooling system is taken from Guanabara Bay and returned cleaner. As a supplement for irrigating the gardens, flushing toilets, and washing the floors of wet areas, rainwater is used. The building, in addition to providing natural light, also has a movable steel roof that serves as panels to capture solar energy. The garden around the museum, composed of native and coastal species, was designed by the Burle Marx office (Museum of Tomorrow, 2015; Architecture, 2016).

^{Figure 1 Museum of Tomorrow. A-C, photographs of the exterior of the museum; model of the Museum of Tomorrow; E-F, photographs of the interior of the museum.}

The choice of interior cladding, a beige-colored limestone, was based on criteria of low absorption, quality, and beauty of the material.

Although its purpose is to discuss the future of humanity in the next 50 years, visitors often do not realize that they are walking on a very distant past. The beige limestone used on the floor throughout the interior of the building and in some exterior parts is full of beautiful invertebrate fossils from the Jandaíra Formation of the Potiguar Basin, Upper Cretaceous of Northeast Brazil.

This work describes the fossils present in the cladding of the Museum of Tomorrow, located in the historical center of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and proposes a paleontological route to be followed within the museum, as well as an educational brochure to be used in the dissemination of paleontological knowledge for education and urban geotourism.