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Research
Training Program
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Highlights
from 2006
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Smithsonian
Institution
National Museum of Natural History
Research
Training Program
Events
Photo Gallery
Mineral
Sciences Collections Tour
Rocks & Ores
Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
Leslie
Hale, holds a basalt with a clear impression
of a tree from Kilauea, Hawaii. The impression
was created when lava flowing from a volcano
caught a tree, lit it on fire, and case
an exact mold of the tree eventually leaving
behind the impression in the basalt rock.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
Juan
Andres Martinez, Jorge Alvarez, Sylvia
Moses and Matthew Oreska look at the interesting
rocks and ores Leslie has gathered from
the collection.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
Erin
Saupe and Alisa O'Connor rub the cut polished
surface of a septarian nodule that was
sliced in half.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
Sheena
Ketchum and Jayme Job display a xenolith,
or piece of the Earth's mantle, the layer
beneath the crust. It was found in Baja
California Norte, Mexico.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
Leslie
Hale describes a piece of bauxite, an
ore of aluminum from Arkansas. Unfortunately,
unlike fossils, dating rocks is a much
more difficult proposition that requires
radioactive decay or another indicator.
As a result, the age of most rocks in
the collection is not known.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
A
"native" copper ore, which means
it came out of the ground in its natural
state and did not have to be smelted.
Found in the Nonesuch Shale in Michigan,
it dates back to the Precambrian, over
500 million years ago.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
Jorge
Alvarez holds pieces of shocked and unshocked
granite from Sedan Crater at the Nevada
nuclear test site. Such specimens are
valuable to scientists because they offer
the opportunity to study before and after
samples of rock from a large impact. These
can then be compared to rocks from meteorite
craters.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
Caleb
McMahan touches what may appear to be
a turtle shell but is in fact a whole
septarian nodule found in Pendleton County,
West Virginia. A septarian nodule is a
type of concretion where a cavity in one
type of rock is filled in with another,
more resistant type of rock.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
A
close-up of the septarian nodule. This
one was formed in sedimentary rock.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
Juan
Andres Martinez happily displays the "walls"
from a septarian nodule from Groveton,
Georgia. This specimen was filled with
calcite that later changed to silica.
Underground water dissolved the insides,
leaving this framework of insoluble silica
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
The
outer walls of a septarian nodule.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
Nick
Rasmussen takes his turn at holding same
the shocked and unshocked granite samples.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
Megan
Ennis holds a piece of itacolumite, a
sandstone that has a flexible nature due
to interbedding with mica, found at (appropriately-named)
Bending Mountain, North Carolina. The
substance was used in garden benches in
Victorian times, but it was found to be
too flimsy to hold much weight over time.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
Jorge
Alvarez and Sylvia Moses test the range
of motion in the flexible sandstone rock.
Who knew rocks bend! This was probably
the biggest hit among the students.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
A
fulgurite. This particular rock is it
is andesite, a common type of volcanic
rock, and was found in Little Ararat,
Turkey. Sand fulgurites are produced when
lightning strikes a sandy beach, fusing
the sands together.
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Rocks
& Ores Collection
Friday,
9 June 2006
Touching
history!
Students
hold a rock that holds an iriduim layer
known as the the KT Boundry (65 mya),
the separation between the Cretaceous
and the Tertiary, possibly providing evidence
of a large impact such as an asteroid
or comet. This is when the dinosaurs disappeared
along with about 75% of all animal species.
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