This first photo shows two of the roughly 1,300 specimens of minerals and gems on display in the Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. I had a chance to see the exhibit yesterday. It was wild to see jewels created out of the ash from Mount Saint Helens and the materials produced by the Manhattan Project’s explosions during the testing of the atomic bomb.
Hillman Hall was really amazing: I was astounded at the colors and varieties of inorganic life created by non-human natural processes. The collection began back in 1896 with a donation from a curator at the Academy of Art and Science,Professor Gustave Guttenberg, and is getting new acquisitions regularly.
I just put some examples of the variety of gems and minerals in the other photos, but I highly recommend checking out this portion of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
