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| A specimen of orbicular granite in the Lasting Impressions gallery |
Once
you ride up through the globe, from the Earth Hall at the Natural History Museum,
you enter an area of the museum now known as the Red Zone and, just following a sign, I set off into the Power Within gallery, where I would learn some more
about volcanoes and earthquakes.
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| The Power Within gallery |
Again,
the time available to explore the Red Zone was limited and, only stopping to
photograph specimens that I found particularly interesting – such as the melted glass
items retrieved after a devastating pyroclastic flow, when Mt. Pelée erupted in 1902 – I moved
on to take a very quick look at the Restless Surface gallery.
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| The Restless Surface gallery |
This
wasn’t my favourite part of the museum, with too much emphasis on the graphics
and interactive displays for my liking, but a large polished slice of a course
conglomerate particularly caught my eye, as well as a slab of rock that was
crammed full of brachiopods.
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| The Earth's Treasury gallery |
Moving
down a level, the Earth’s Treasury gallery contains many more minerals,
particularly cut and polished gemstones and also places
emphasis on their economic value and the practical applications of some of the metals that
have been extracted from them.
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| The From the Beginning gallery |
The
last gallery that I visited was From The Beginning but I didn’t stay around
long enough to look at the specimens in any detail and, returning to the ground
floor and passing through the Lasting Impressions gallery - where I saw fine
examples of orbicular granite and petrified wood – I made my way to the
bookshop...
