Mineral and Lapidary Museum

The Mineral and Lapidary Museum of Henderson County is a volunteer-run museum in Hendersonville, North Carolina founded in 1997.^[1][2][3][4]

Located in Western North Carolina astride the geologically rich Blue Ridge Mountains, the decade-old the museum has been nicknamed The Geode-Cracking Museum. On a typical day, geodes are cracked in half by volunteer staff.

Exhibits

The petrology and natural history museum features "a wonderful variety of minerals, gems, and fossils" -- including dozens of stone and mineral specimens from North Carolina, and a long wall of local Henderson Augen Gneiss.

A six-foot-tall purple amethyst geode from Brazil is the largest geode on display. Yet another exhibit features over two dozen pairs of colorful quartz and calcite geodes from Mexico.

One unusual mineralology exhibit presents three dozen fluorescent minerals, such as fluorite, opal, willemite, calcite, ruby and sodalite. Phosphorescence is illustrated by the use of (a) short-wave ultraviolet light and (b) long-wave ultraviolet light -- also known as black light -- as well as (c) by the use of both combined.

Among the gemstones exhibited are four replica versions of the Hope Diamond, including a reproduction of the large 18th-century French Blue Diamond.

Chunks of the 1901 Hendersonville iron-nickel meteorite are displayed nearby, as are local Native American (probably early Cherokee) archeological artifacts.

As for fossils and paleontology, the Mineral and Lapidary Museum has a replica Tyrannosaurus rex skull from the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era. Another skull is that of Smilodon, the big sabre-tooth cat from the Pleistocene epoch of the Cenozoic era -- not to overlook a replica tusk from a prehistoric mastodon.

Children are welcomed to touch the authentic (non-avian) dinosaur eggs on display. Laid by a duck-billed hadrosaur many millions of year ago during the late Mesozoic, these fosssilized eggs were discovered in the Hunan province of China.

The museum has three giant tree trunks of petrified wood, permineralized by the passage of vast geologic time. Visitors may actually rest on these relics of the distant, deep past.

See also

• List of museums in North Carolina

References

1. ^ Source is museum's staff and publications as of December 1, 2010.
2. ^ Mineral & Lapidary Museum official website News page. Accessed December 1, 2009.
3. ^ Mineral & Lapidary Museum official website Events page. Accessed December 1, 2009.
4. ^ Historic Hendersonville website page on Mineral & Lapidary Museum of Henderson County. Accessed December 1, 2009.

External links

• Mineral & Lapidary Museum official website
• North Carolina Museums Council
• North Carolina Exploring Cultural Heritage Online - includes listings and photos of NC museums
• Learn NC
• Osomin website - List of Mineral & fossil museums in the United States]

Coordinates: 35°19′01″N 82°27′35″W / 35.3169°N 82.4598°W / 35.3169; -82.4598