We had a field trip to Western Michigan University's Geology Department September 23rd. Brian Bird took us through the museum collection, which is located in the corridors of the Rood building. The mineral collection was beautiful, and contained many items from Michigan. The fulgarites, glass tubes formed when lightning strikes beach sand, and the 250 pound chunk of copper, called a "glacial erratic", were especially interesting. There was also a display of Mastodon bones which had been excavated by Western students from a field in Van Buren County. There was also a model of the coelecanth fish, thought to be extinct but then discovered alive off the coast of western Africa, and castings of other fossils.

Some things we learned were that "lithograph" refers to rock, and lithography printing was originally done on a kind of limestone. We also learned that there are two kinds of asbestos, with long or short fibers. Only the short fiber one is dangerous. A "black light" allowed us to get a different look at many sliced minerals.

There was also an old seismograph, recording earthquakes--as well as local construction work, trees blowing in the wind, and even the black light going off behind it! There is now a new computerized seismograph, but the old one is still interesting to look at. It was put out of commission recently by the ground wave from a 7.5 earthquake in New Guinea.

Brian Bird then took us into a lab room where we sat at laboratory tables. We were able to actually handle samples like a piece of magnetite, a mastodon bone, a lava bomb (a piece of molten lava that was shot up from a volcano, and cooled in the air to get a streamlined look), an ammonite, and a shark jaw. We could actually see the facets on a trilobite's fossilized eyes. There was also sandstone in "fossilized waves" from a long ago sea bottom, a leaf fossil, and fluoride and quartz crystals. Then we went into the testing lab, where he showed us how geologists prepare slices of rock thin enough to shine light through them, so it is easier look at the samples through a microscope.

At the end of the tour, he gave us all samples of a rock or mineral. Mine was feldspar with dendrites, which are small fernlike patterns. Garth got mica. It was a very good tour.

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