Rocks and Minerals
The museum’s first room greets visitors with hundreds of rock and mineral specimens. The minerals on display exhibit a range of properties: sparkly to earthy, cube-shaped to pointy and all the colors in the rainbow. Specimens on display from each of the three rock types show characteristic differences between sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks.

In this room visitors also can touch a large (1,300 lb) copper piece, learn about Wisconsin’s mining history, and gaze at sparkling gems.

 

Meteorites
Near the entrance to the museum a meteorite display includes many examples from Wisconsin including the Trenton meteorite (1858), the Algoma meteorite (found in 1887) and the Kilborn meteorite (1916). Both stony and iron meteorites are on exhibit, including specimens from Argentina, Namibia and a large (300 lb) piece of the Canyon Diablo meteorite from Holbrook, Arizona (25,000 - 50,000 years ago).

 

Fluorescent display
In the museum’s Black Light Display, normal-looking rocks and minerals turn into splashes of vibrant colors when ultraviolet light is shone on them. This transformation is called fluorescence.

Generally fluorescence is caused by the presence of an activator in the mineral. An activator is an element that is foreign to the mineral’s normal crystal structure. When the ultraviolet light hits the activator atom, electrons of the atom absorb the energy and are bumped up to a higher energy level. These electrons then fall back to their original places, giving off absorbed energy in the form of heat and visible light.

In this room, you may notice that your white clothes also change color. The detergent used to wash your clothes often contains fluorescent materials that are intended to make your “whites whiter” when exposed to sunlight.

Fluorescence is a physical process where electromagnetic radiation (light) of one wavelength, striking a particular substance, causes an emission of electromagnetic radiation (light) of another, longer, wavelength.

 

Fossils
Approximately two-thirds of the museum is devoted to invertebrate, vertebrate, plant, and trace fossils. Jellyfish impressions from Wisconsin, 10-foot long cephalopod shells, beetles from the LaBrea tar pits, and a shark found with turtle remains in its stomach are examples of the various fossils on display. In addition, large, touchable specimens are located throughout the museum including a variety of stromatolites, a petrified tree, and a slab containing lungfish burrows.

 

 

 

Dinosaurs
The vertebrate room of the museum houses a variety of dinosaurs from the Cretaceous-age Hell Creek Formation including a 33-foot long Edmontosaurus skeleton, and skulls from Tyrannosaurus rex,Triceratops, and Pachycephalosaurus.

A window in the museum allows visitors to look into the Prep Lab where dinosaur and other fossil remains are carefully uncovered, cleaned and restored. Many of the specimens on display in the museum were found by museum workers and then cleaned and partially assembled in this room.