Houston Natural History Museum

On Saturday June 7th all the intern students who had arriven (8/12 of us!) decided to do a day trip into downtown Houston.

Our residence and workplaces are in the Clear Lake area, which is part of the Greater Houston Area to the southwest of the downtown core.  It is approximately a 40 minute drive into Houston, (with no transport services) making trips an exciting experience!  Carpooling is advantageous, as four interns have vehicles.

We all bought tickets to the Scotland vs. U.S. rugby match (why not?  New experiences!), and decided that beforehand we would visit the Natural History Museum and go for dinner.  Dinner was at a Mexican restaurant, and by heavens, Mexican food is understandably amazing in Texas.

The museum delighted us geology students with its paleontology and mineral exhibits.

"But first, let me take a selfie."
With Stephan and Tim

There was a special exhibit on gemstone carving.  There is definitely a masterful display of skill in these pieces. 

Almost all the stones carved were agates.  Agates are a microcrystalline variety of quartz which have been used in artwork and jewellery around the world for millennia.

Agates have a hardness of 7 on Moh's scale, making them considerably harder to carve than soapstone or marble.
Diamond bit tools are required.

There is an exhibit specifically devote to Petroleum Geology.  I was rather excited to go through that.
The exhibit featured various remote sensing and geophysical exploration methods, as well as different aspects of drilling procedures.

Dinosaurs!  Not quite the Drumheller museum, but still pretty fantastic!

"Okay guys, look scientific"
The polished petrified wood slices were really fantastic.  The amount of variety in colour was incredible.  Some were black and white, others had vivid reds and yellows.

A lot of the fossils were stunning.   I wish I could decorate my place with these!

The amount of detail in these fossils is very impressive.

This ichthyosaur was pregnant at the time of death.
You can see some of the remnants of her progeny.

Quetzalcoatlus is a genus of Pterosaur, which contains the largest known flying animals.  They have a 10m wing span.
I could ride this into battle.

This is the tallest amethyst cathedral I have ever seen.
For scale, I am 5'7".

Stibnite is one of my favourite minerals, and I have never previously seen a specimen larger than one of these blades.
Stibnite is a sulphide, and is the most common ore mineral for antimony, (Sb2S3)

"The Dragon" - Native gold.
This is easily the one of the most impressive mineral specimens I have ever seen.
Photo credit to Stefan.

I didn't take too many photos of the mineral exhibit, because honestly, everything in there was fantastic and I couldn't prioritize.  My camera was also running out of battery.

We went to the rugby match, which was exciting!  Scotland won, 24-6!  God save the Queen!  Tim, Stefan and I beamed with Commonwealth pride.

Happily sitting in the nosebleeds. 

All in all, it was a great day with great people.  I hope we get to do more fun outings in the future.