Rock Museum

We went to a pretty cool rock museum the other day.  Logan's interested in rocks lately.  After going to the museum and reading books on the subject, Logan has decided to be a Geologist, so he can "mine for rocks."

 

 The museum had this cool map.  When you hit a button, the "quartz" button for example, lights show up on the map where quartz is found.  The kids spent a long time playing with this map.

 

And here's some quartz.  I thought it was intersting how it grew in this wave like pattern.

 Here's quartz with pyrite...

 and pyrite with quartz.

 What opal looks like in nature.  This is Taylor's birthstone.

 Barite (I think).  Isn't it cool how it grows in this square/rectangular pattern?

 Taylor loved the pink rocks.  This is rhodonite. 

Beautiful pink rock with a cool green stone inside. (heulandite-Ca with green apophylite)

 A meteorite that landed in Argentina. 

A cross-section of a meterite. 

 The kids got to touch a meteorite, a rock that had actually been in outer space!

 

 A dinosaur fossil at the museum.

 

What the dinosaur looked like when it lived.

 Fossilized dinosaur egg nest.

 Ammonite fossil.

 Variscite

 Quartz.

Gypsum.

 

 

Microcline.  I don't know what it is, but I think this was my favorite rock in the whole place.  I love it's shape and color.

  Azurite.

 Huge pieces of turquoise.  I'm used to only seeing tiny pieces.

 A 200 pound hunk of pyrite!

 

 The museum also had a gallery of flurescent rocks.  They looked just like all the other rocks until the black light was shown on them, then they lit up like a Christmas tree. 

 The kids were able to feel the inside of one of the thunder-eggs.  The thunder-egg is Oregon's State Rock. 

 The kids had so much fun.  We spent about 2 hours in the museum.  Then each of the kids were allowed to pick out a rock from an outside rock pile.  Who would have guessed rocks could be so fascinating.