Geological Collections
The geological collections are of more than local importance and consist of more than 9,000 mineralogical specimens and several hundred thousand fossils. Approximately one twentieth of the collection is on exhibition and the remainder in storage but available for study by interested persons. Much of the collecting was done in the second half of the 19th century and notable among the collections are the David Homfray collection from the Cambrian and Ordovician strata of Wales; and the collections of George H. Hickling and D. M. S. Watson which are from the Silurian of the Dudley district, West Midlands and from the Old Red Sandstone. Many other specimens of great interest could be mentioned, such as the fossilised plants of the Coal Measures, the S. S. Buckman collection of ammonites, an ichthyosaur from Whitby and 40,000 mammalian bones from an excavation at Creswell Crags, Derbyshire. The David Forbes World Collection of minerals is in the Museum and since the 1920s there has been a policy of complementary collecting by the Museum and the University Department of Geology by which the Museum specialises in hard rock petrology.
The museum's collection of zeolite group minerals originated from a donation by Caroline Birley in 1894.
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