The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, opened in 1912, is the geology museum of the University of Cambridge in England. It is part of the Department of Earth Sciences and is located on the University's Downing Site in Downing Street, central Cambridge, England.
The Sedgwick has a collection of more than 1 million rocks, minerals and fossils. The museum was built in memory of Adam Sedgwick and started with Dr John Woodward's bequest of his fossil collection in 1728 (still on display in its original cabinets).
The museum logo is based on the Iguanodon skeleton displayed by the entrance. A display board explains that the skeleton is incorrectly mounted in an upright posture rather than a horizontal one but as the upright posture is widely recognised on the logo it was decided to leave the specimen and logo as they are.
Displays include a gallery of minerals and gemstones, rocks collected by Charles Darwin on the 'Voyage of the Beagle', dinosaurs from the Jurassic and Triassic, and fossils from the local area including a hippopotamus from the nearby Barrington gravel pits.
The museum also has a small shop which sells souvenirs as well as geological equipment.
The Sedgwick is regularly used as a venue for events aimed at outreach and widening interest in Earth Sciences such as the annual Cambridge Science Festival.
Famous quotes containing the words museum, earth and/or sciences:
“A Museum of fetishes would give special attention to the history of underwear.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“I need not say what match I would touch, what system endeavor to blow up; but as I love my life, I would side with the light, and let the dark earth roll from under me, calling my mother and my brother to follow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“These modern ingenious sciences and arts do not affect me as those more venerable arts of hunting and fishing, and even of husbandry in its primitive and simple form; as ancient and honorable trades as the sun and moon and winds pursue, coeval with the faculties of man, and invented when these were invented. We do not know their John Gutenberg, or Richard Arkwright, though the poets would fain make them to have been gradually learned and taught.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)