Description of the attraction
State Geological Museum. IN AND. Vernadsky is the oldest Moscow museum, scientific center, educational center of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the field of earth sciences. The museum was founded in 1755. The idea of creating the museum belongs to M. V. Lomonosov, and the collection of the museum was based on the collection of the Demidovs, donated to the museum.
The museum has existed in its current form since 1988. It was then, at the suggestion of Professor Mineev, supported by the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, that a government decree "On the 125th anniversary of the birth of Vernadsky" was issued. It included a clause on the creation of a museum in a building on Mokhovaya Street in the center of the capital. When creating the State Geological Museum. Vernadsky, the museum funds of two museums were combined: the Pavlovs Geological and Paleontological Museum and the V. Vernadsky. In 1994, the museum was transferred to the subordination of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The museum building was renovated and original exhibitions were organized on its premises.
The museum's mineralogical collection is one of the three largest collections in Russia. For more than two hundred years, some of the exhibits of this exposition of the museum have been visual aids for teaching students of Moscow University and the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute. The collection of the museum contains samples that are the reference material for mineral species. It contains samples of minerals from discovered deposits. Ilmenite - from the open Ilmensky deposit in the reserve of the same name, joseite - from São Jose, etc.
To date, the museum has almost 60 thousand exhibits, samples of 1100 types of minerals. The museum collection contains samples from 5000 deposits. Throughout the two-hundred-year history of the museum, its funds have been continuously replenished by patrons, statesmen, scientists and students.
The museum displays unique samples of minerals. Thus, a 1 meter high phlogopite crystal from Slyudyanka, mined in 1929, is the largest in Russia. A huge (more than 60 cm long) prismatic crystal of apatite came to the museum from the same deposit. A slab of native copper, mined in Kazakhstan, weighs about five hundred kilograms. A lump of malachite from the Urals weighs 200 kg. The lump was donated by one of the Demidovs and displayed on a special pedestal. A huge core of rock salt was brought from Donbass. It is 80 centimeters in diameter and 1.2 meters high. The exposition contains rare, unique in size crystals of oripigment, pleonasta, analcime, cassiterite and many, many unique specimens.
