Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals

Today the girls and I went to the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals. It was very cool. Mr. and Mrs. Rice had this house built back in the 1950's and the basement was designed to be a gallery for their rock and mineral collection. After they both died, the entire house was turned into a museum and additional collections were added. 

You can read more about the history of the museum and Mr. and Mrs. Rice HERE.

There was a fossil collection that included this baby dinosaur fossil from China.

some petrified wood

These next couple of photos are from the "Rainbow Room" - a display that shows the brilliant colors some minerals display when under black lights.

There was also a case of birthstone gems. For each birthstone there was an example of a specimen straight from the ground and then examples of what jewelers sell. 

Garnet for Sydney

and Opal for Kayleigh

There were many, many examples of quartz and these were a few of the more interesting ones.

Then we headed to the petrified wood gallery which is on loan from another couple. It was a beautiful display - probably my favorite room in the museum.

This is the "Alma Rose" Rhodochrosite. We got to watch a video of miners looking for minerals in Alma, CO. They just happened to find this specimen when the video crew was there. After pulling it out of the rock and cave they discovered they were only inches from blowing it up with dynamite. This is the largest known specimen of this kind in the world.

And this is another example of rhodochrosite that formed under different circumstances.

This was a huge piece of Pyrite from Peru.

I don't remember what this is, but I thought it was beautiful.

I love this fireplace!

There was an additional building with a gallery of minerals found here in the Northwest. These photos aren't fuzzy or blurry, the minerals actually look that way.

Thunder eggs are Oregon's state rock. Here are some examples of opal filled thunder eggs.

There were a few shelves of minerals from around the world amidst this NW display and these final two photos are of minerals found in India.

This was a great field trip opportunity. We definitely will go back so Kevin can see this!