Another visit during our New York City trip was the Natural History Museum. They had some pretty impressive specimens. For example, this is the jagged inside of a lava tube.
This is a black smoker - a hydrothermal vent brought up from the bottom of the ocean. These spew out geothermally heated water and support entire ecosystems of life around them entirely different from anything else on Earth - giving us an appreciation of how little we know on the origins of life.
This meteor has deep indentations from it's semi-molten past.
Another massive meteor.
This is a core sample from Antarctica - each of the dark and light bands corresponds to another season in Antarctica, and like tree rings, can tell us about climate change.
Kind of like this tree, that was over 2000 years old when it was cut down.
 |
| Imagine being the grad student who counted these rings. |
Bram takes some time to taunt the kitties.
This is a very impressive nautilus shell - mineralized into a rainbow.
The skeleton of Lucy, who lived over three million years ago!
Beautiful inclusions.
Bram told me he wanted this for Christmas: the Star of India. Um... yeah.
A really neat geode. I had once cut open and polished a geode that looked very similar to this one - but this was much larger.
The museum even had a complete Loch Ness Monster skeleton!
Here I am standing next to a prehistoric thunder turtle.
Check out that tail!
A T-Rex terrorizes the locals.
Ceratosaurs - extinct. Carnosaurs - extinct. Ornithomimids - extinct. Maniraptors - not extinct?!?!!?
 |
| Time to brush up on raptor awareness! |
Prehistoric thunder armadillos.
The amazing specimens continue: these imprints are of tiny dinosaurs but the most amazing part- you can see imprints of feathers.
Another incredible specimen: this one is a fossilized fetus of a dinosaur, still in an egg.
And this is a mummified dinosaur, still with skin attached!!!
And where does this rock come from? (one point - no google!)
Ginny: the moon?
ReplyDeleteMars
ReplyDeleteCurious to know how big those meteorites were at the top of your blog.
ReplyDeleteThis is an amazing Nat. History Museum, was it really bit? Could you go through most of it on your visit? If I ever get to NYC this is def. on my list!!
I meant big, not bit...crazy autocorrect
ReplyDeleteIs it part of the Berlin Wall? :)
ReplyDeleteCongrats Ginny - it is indeed the moon.
ReplyDeleteThe museum is huge! We sat down and planned what rooms to see and made sure we saw those. I would say we only saw about 20% of the museum. If that.
The meteorites were very large. About the size of a refrigerator to sofa. They were some of the largest to ever hit the Earth (and be recovered).
I knew it was the moon, so I had to guess Mars then (where else right?) But when "anonymous" said the Berlin Wall I was sure that was the correct answer as it looked so square and had what looked like marks from sledge hammers.... that was a good one!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rose! I am sorry, I forgot to put my name on it. Greetings from Jerusalem! Keep blogging, Beth!
ReplyDeleteRodolfo