For the research of my novel, I contacted the Petrified National Forest to learn more about petrified wood.  I got some good information but I really wanted to learn more about rocks and stones and crystals hands on.

A guided tour

Shortly after that call, a friend and I went to the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals in Oregon to learn about different rocks and stones. It seemed like when you actually start talking about rocks there is so much to learn.  There is even a field call mineralogy which gets into the nitty-gritty.

We received a guided tour of what they housed in the museum.  We talked about

Sedimentary rocks

Igneous rocks

Metamorphic rocks

We also held some discussion about quartz

The museum housed different types of quartz.  Amethyst is a quartz crystal with a little iron impurity or impure perfections.
Thundereggs are “geode that got filled up…The crystals are made of the same stuff as amethyst, just a lot smaller.”
There were some cool looking ones.

Even interesting– was one rock from billions of years ago which blew my mind.

The tour took about ninety minutes that is because people had a bunch of questions. If you like rocks and museums, it is a good place to stop.