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Rocks fall into these three groups: Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic.

Kids took the OLogy Challenge and shared their work with us!
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Deep inside the Earth, intense heat and pressure can change rocks into entirely new metamorphic rocks.
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These rocks provide the most clues about the history of life on Earth. 

Every rock has a story to tell. Learn how to create a collection that rocks!
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Deformed conglomerate is a metamorphic rock that has been changed by heat and pressure.
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Igneous rocks form when magma, or melted rock from inside the Earth, cools and hardens. They can form above ground when ...

Meet six rocks that travelled to the Museum from places like Mexico, Scotland, and even outer space.

This strong and sturdy rock has a special history. Find out!

Meet a rock that has been through it all: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.

After 200 million years apart, this rock finally reunited with its long-lost cousin. 

This rock is as old as Earth itself. What stories does it tell?

Meet a rock that's made almost entirely of fossils! 

Meet obsidian, an igneous rock that formed from magma.
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Granite is an igneous rock, which means it formed from magma, or melted rock. It forms deep inside the Earth under a mou...

Visit a scientist's lab to see how he creates a magma chamber!

Jade is one of the most durable rocks in the world. It's the perfect material for tools!

Did you know that jade is actually a common name for two different rocks?
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Jim is fascinated with volcanoes. He wants to know why some volcanoes erupt explosively, and how he might be able to hel...
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Obsidian doesn't look like your typical rock. In fact, it looks more like dark glass than a rock you'd pick up in your b...

Create your own crystals with sugar. Then enjoy your tasty treat!
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Ed Mathez has always been fascinated by rocks and the Earth. As a young boy, he went with his mother to old rock quarrie...
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Jade is a special and rare rock. For thousands of years, people around the world have been using this durable and beauti...
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Like many kids interested in science, Ro Kinzler thought she wanted to be a marine biologist. But later on, she realized...

Find out how he became a geologist and what you can learn from studying rocks.

Take a peek at our planet's layers, learn what secrets rocks reveal, and gain a long view of history.

Take a peek into a mineralogist's scrapbook to see why he thinks jade is so special.
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Asteroids are space rocks that have existed since the formation of the planets over 4.6 billion years ago. Scientists be...
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Pathfinder landed on Mars' surface carrying thesix-wheeled Sojourner rover, a mobile robot. Rover and lander took over 1...
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Imagine you are an Arabian incense trader in 100 B.C. Arriving in Petra, you enter through the Siq—a long, winding gorge...
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Some volcanoes erupt explosively, like opening a shaken soda bottle, because their magma is full of gases.
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If there's life on any other planet in our solar system, it's probably on Mars. Scientists have sent orbiters, landers, ...
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George Harlow travels the world over to study how jade, rubies, and diamonds form. George wants to find out what these r...
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The hellbender is one of the largest salamanders in North America.
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Sandstone is made of tiny pieces of sand you can see and feel. You can actually scratch away grains of sand from a piece...

Do you dig the Earth? If so, you'll want to meet Ed.

Do you have what it takes to drive a robot on Mars?
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On July 5, 1997, the six-wheeled robotic rover, Sojourner, rolled down a ramp from the Pathfinder spacecraft onto the Ma...
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Carefully removing the fossils without damaging them takes talent, special tools, and lots of patience. 
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Saturn is known for the beautiful rings that form a giant hula hoop around it. The rings are made of chunks of ice and r...
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Most ocean plants and animals live near the shore, on a narrow ribbon of seafloor called the continental shelf.
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Limestone is made up of fossils. After small marine animals die, their shells and skeletons build up on the ocean floor....
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Take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Your body just released carbon dioxide, a colorless gas that's essential to life o...
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Miles below your feet, scorching temperatures can get hot enough to melt rock. In some places, water heated deep undergr...
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Of all the dinosaurs to roam the Earth, the largest ones belonged to a group called sauropods- huge plant-eating dinosau...
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Fossils are the key to understanding life in the past.
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In the 1940s, paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History discovered rich fossil beds in the high desert...
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As a kid, John Flynn had a rock collection and made lots of trips with his family and school to the American Museum of N...
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This is one of the oldest known dinosaurs!
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Many animals and plants use color to warn predators to stay away, and the blue ringed octopus is no exception. When this...
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Did you ever see a "shooting star"? What you really saw was a meteor burning up in the Earth's atmosphere.
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Not all spiders spin webs to catch their meals. When night falls in Australia, the white-tailed spider hunts its prey on...
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When "ologists" observe plants, animals, fossils, or rocks, they know they won't remember every detail. So they keep not...
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In 1997, Dolly rocked the world of genetics. Not baaaa'd for a little lamb from Scotland. What was the big deal? She was...
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If you look at a map, the coasts of South America and Africa seem to fit together like puzzle pieces.
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The plates that make up the Earth's crust are always moving. When two plates meet, the motion causes lots of pressure to...
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In 1910, British naval officer Robert Falcon Scott set sail for Antarctica aboard the Terra Nova. He hoped to be the fir...
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The oddest thing about Uranus is that the planet, its rings, and its moons "roll" around the Sun on an axis tilted by mo...
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As an Eagle Scout, David Hurst Thomas was always on the lookout for ancient Indian camps. He never found one as a kid, b...
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This rare lizard lived in the Gobi Desert about 80 million years ago. 
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Psittacosaurus is one of the oldest and most primitive ceratopians ever found!
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Pluto was discovered in 1930 and considered to be the ninth planet in our solar system.
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If you ever find a pseudoscorpion in your bathtub, don't worry! These tiny arachnids are harmless to humans.
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Every summer, Museum paleontologists join Mongolian scientists to hunt for fossils. 
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Located in the Gobi Desert, this is a fossil "hot spot" for Museum paleontologists. 
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Craters are formed when objects from space crash onto a planet's surface. The impact blasts a hole or impression where t...
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A bike, a tree, a cloud, an ocean -- any object you can name -- it's all made of matter. Even YOU are made of matter. Ma...
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Have you ever wondered why you look like your parents, grandparents, or siblings? It's because of your genes -- the inst...
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Named in 2000, this dinosaur is hot off the "paleo" presses! Unlike the jagged teeth of other troodontids, Byronosaurus ...
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Earth was a very different place at the beginning of the Triassic. All of Earth's continents were combined into one supe...
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The name Jurassic conjures images of tremendous dinosaurs roaming the Earth.
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Thousands of years before the Aztecs, a native people called the Zapotec founded one of Mexico's earliest civilizations ...
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Two thousand years ago, Petra was a center of trade and culture in the ancient world. The dazzling city in the desert wa...
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A magnetometer lets archeologists measure magnetic strengths and detect buried artifacts without digging and destroying ...
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The striped bass has been a popular catch for fishermen for centuries. These fishes are known for their spiny fins and t...
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Atoms are tiny building blocks that make up all matter in the Universe. Atoms may be tiny, but they hold an extraordinar...
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Located in the heart of the Middle East, this small desert nation is home to some of the world's oldest archaeological s...
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Since he was a boy, Vladimir Ovtsharenko has been fascinated by nature. Growing up, he loved collecting spiders, beetles...
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Comets are like "dirty snowballs" that have orbited the Sun since our Solar System formed, billions of years ago. A come...
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About 80 million years ago in the Gobi Desert, sixteen dinosaurs hatched in this nest. One of the hatchlings died before...
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The Hubble Space Telescope is the first major optical telescope to orbit Earth.
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The smallest and most distant of the "gas giant" planets. Neptune has much in common with its three huge neighbors Jupit...
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Mars is often called the "red planet." It's red because its surface is covered with rusted particles of iron.
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Bustling with a spectacular diversity of life, coral reefs are the rain forests of the oceans.
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The seafloor covers more than half of the Earth's surface. Most of the seafloor consists of the flat, expansive abyssal ...
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Imagine you are a marine biologist, traveling far beneath the ocean surface in a submersible.
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Early civilizations offered it to appease their gods. Ancient Egyptians placed it in tombs to support the dead on their ...
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Scientists are developing and improving "clean" energy sources. But for the next hundred years, the world will continue ...
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Some people may call invertebrates spineless because they lack a backbone or spine! But these amazing creatures are the ...
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A coral reef may look like a colorful underwater garden, but these living structures are made by thousands of tiny anima...
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Meteorites and asteroids have bombarded the Moon for billions of years, leaving deep craters on its surface.
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Winter brings snow and ice in places like northern Minnesota. But during the same season along Florida's beaches, temper...
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Long ago, camel caravans trekked thousands of miles across the snowy mountains and scorching deserts of Asia. Along the ...
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When he was 8 years old, Theodore Roosevelt found a seal skull. It would be the first specimen in his very own natural h...
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When she was a kid, Ana explored the landscapes of rural Uruguay and Brazil and the many plants and animals that live th...
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Antarctica is like no other place on Earth. The continent is covered almost entirely by a thick ice sheet. Yet there is ...
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Henry Bowers was no stranger to the sea. He had sailed around the world 5 times. But when he join- ed Robert Scott's fam...