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Desert Museum Exhibits
Earth Sciences
Geology is often viewed as a static science, in contrast to the "life sciences" of biology. Yet the earth's surface behaves as if it were a living, squirming organism, constantly reshaping itself, forming new habitats and altering others, providing much of the momentum of natural selection and the resulting diversity of life.
Geology Overlook
At the Geology Overlook visitors enjoy the expansive view over Avra Valley
and its neighboring mountains, in the very midst of this process of uprising,
shifting, and erosion. Also visible from the overlook is Brown Mountain and its
stratified rocks dating to the time of the dinosaurs. Nearer to our times, only
12,000 years ago, were the camel and mammoth whose bones and tracks were found
protruding from an arroyo's bank in the valley.
Earth Sciences Center
Bright sunlight fades as you descend the gentle incline into ASDM's utterly
convincing artificial cave. A yielding wall of cool air parts to let you inside,
and the blackness seems total at first, until your eyes adapt and you begin to
make out the dim silhouettes of arches and side chambers. Along this passage,
the mechanisms and residents of a rarely seen environment are revealed within
pools of light that lead you from each display to the next. One charts the development
of a limestone cave and the formation of stalagmites and stalagtites, another
shows the animals that frequent the twilight zones of cave entrances: bobcats,
pack rats, ringtails, and barn owls.
A side tunnel, posted with a warning for those with claustrophobic tendencies,
provides a realistic caving experience in 75 feet of sinous, low-clearance maneuvering.
It's the delight of children whose trepidatious parents feign disinterest and
stick to the main passage. A little farther, the sound of burbling water invites
a peek into an adjacent room, revealing a glistening mass of cave formations,
gently floodlit from beneath the surface of a turquoise pool.
The cave exhibits lead to a room filled with the sounds of apocalypse - the
churning cauldron of volcanic eruptions playing on a large screen, the backdrop
to a sweeping circle of backlit globes depicting the birth of our world.
In an adjacent hall, part of the Museum's breathtaking mineral collection
glows in crystalline hues of ruby , amethyst, and emerald. Thus the visitor to
ASDM's earth sciences center has been treated to a full spectrum of the truly
"living" science of geology - from the raging forces that create wonderlands
in the underground caverns, to the jewel-like products of tremendous tectonic
forges.
Mineral Collection Tour
The Desert Museum's permanent mineral collection has been touted
as one of the finest regional mineral collections in the world. The strength
of the collection lies in the museum's narrow focus of attention: minerals from
the Sonoran Desert region of Arizona, Sonora and Baja, California. Don't miss
this stunning collection on your next visit to the museum. In the mean time,
we invite you to browse through the following collection of ten minerals along
with a bit of information about each.
