Three Massive Minerals with Spectacular Stories

[DRILLING SOUNDS]

A woman in a safety vest leans over a pile of rocks with a magnifying glass, followed by a closeup of the garnet embedded in the rock she’s looking at.

GEORGE HARLOW: Geologists go and look at earth as outcrops,

A team of people in hard hats drill into a huge rock face with mechanical lifts and drills.

HARLOW: things that are meters to hundreds of meters in scale.

A huge slab of rock falls off the rock face onto a pile of sand, creating a big [BOOM] and cloud of dust as it falls.

HARLOW: So for the mineral hall, I thought that the idea of getting closer to nature

We zoom out of the now cut-and-polished slab of rock, grey granite with large red garnets embedded inside, sitting in a mineral hall.

HARLOW: by bringing the big, natural objects in would both be exciting

Camera pans across a huge cross section of polished petrified wood, and a tall, white beryl crystal on a stand in the same mineral hall.

HARLOW: and also informative about the scale of processes that we’re talking about.

[MUSIC]

Drone footage of the entrance of the new halls, with a huge, round, purple geode standing at the front. The American Museum of Natural History logo unfurls on top. The Star of India sapphire sits at the middle of a case of gems, in front of a much larger hall filled with gemstones. The camera flies down the middle of the new halls, passing a large blue and green stone and flying towards a tall towering geode. Text appears: “In 2021, the American Museum of Natural History opened the new Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals.”

ELLEN FUTTER: The reopening of these halls

The camera pans over sparkling gems and bright, colorful minerals.

FUTTER: is particularly thrilling at this poignant moment in history.

FUTTER appears on screen. Text appears: “Ellen Futter, President, American Museum of Natural History.”

FUTTER: It’s the return of a beloved treasure of the museum and of the city.

Shots of beautiful and colorful mineral specimens arranged in cases appear on screen. The Star of India sapphire appears on screen in a close-up.

FUTTER: And when visitors from all over the country and all over the world come to see these gorgeously restored halls, they’re going to find remarkable specimens.

The camera pans up a sparkling, bright pink tourmaline crystal. The camera centers on the large brown Subway Garnet, mounted in a case surrounded by other minerals.

HARLOW: We probably have 128,000 specimens in the mineral and gem collections.

Sapphires on display in the gems hall. The camera flies down one wall of the mineral hall, showing an array of many mineral specimens on display.

HARLOW: In this hall, there’s a little over 5,500 specimens.

HARLOW appears on screen. Text appears: “George Harlow, Curator, Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals”

HARLOW: That’s more specimens than in any other hall in the museum. And I think when you people come here, it’ll become obvious, wow, there are a lot of specimens, and the nice thing is they all tell slightly different stories.

Close-up shots of a grey-looking mineral, a white and translucent crystal, and a slab of green jade next to a green jade carving. The camera rotates around a tall purple amethyst geode. Text appears: “Amethyst Geodes, Paraná Basin, Uruguay.” HARLOW reappears on screen.

HARLOW: Behind me is an amethyst geode.

The camera moves over a close-up of the interior crystals of the geode.

HARLOW: This geode actually represents a giant bubble that occurred in the middle of a layer of

We see a wide angle of the geode, and back away from it slowly. HARLOW reappears on screen.

HARLOW: The crystals that you see inside the geode are quartz crystals,

Sparkling crystals inside the geode come in and out of focus.

HARLOW: and those are amongst the first things to form, dissolved by water, and then precipitated inside the cavity. In order to make quartz purple,

A glittering clear quartz crystal. Text appears: “Colorless Quartz (Rock Crystal)”

HARLOW: you have to irradiate it. And so that takes a long time to turn a quartz from a colorless quartz

A small amethyst quartz on display in the new hall cases. Text appears: “Amethyst Quartz”.

HARLOW: to an amethyst colored quartz, probably on the order of many millions of years.

HARLOW reappears on screen.

HARLOW: So one of the cool things about this rock is the timescales it represents.

The screen divides into three parts. On the left, a wide shot showing the whole tall geode. Text appears below it: “Minutes to hours”

HARLOW: That bubble maybe occurred in a few minutes to an hour,

In the middle of the screen there is a close up of quartz crystals with the text below it: “Hundreds of Years”

HARLOW: crystals, hundreds of years,

Deep purple crystals appear on the right side of the screen, with text below it: “Millions of years.”

HARLOW: then the amethyst, millions and millions of years.

HARLOW reappears on screen.

HARLOW: One of the problems with it is that it’s got its front, and it’s got its back.

The camera rotates around to the back side of the tall geode, where we see another shorter and rounder amethyst geode facing out.

HARLOW: So why don’t we get another geode,

Wide shot of the second, shorter geode.

HARLOW: we put them back-to-back and then you’ll always be looking at the face? The thing that I find most amazing

HARLOW reappears on screen.

HARLOW: is whereas they both come from the same place, they have very different characteristics, both in terms of color,

Closeups of the edge of both geodes, split on either side of the screen.

HARLOW: what’s going on inside of them. You know, they’re very, very different from one another,

The screen is still split with wide shots of both geodes. The taller geode is on the left, and the shorter geode is on the right. The geodes fade to black. Fading up from black we see a large square block of rusty brown rock with bright blue and green swirls embedded within it. Text appears: “The Singing Stone, Bisbee, Arizona, USA”

HARLOW: This specimen is a block of the green mineral malachite and the blue mineral azurite.

A still black and white photo shows two men standing next to the same large block, with metal transport slats wrapped around it.

HARLOW: Originally it was the centerpiece of an exhibition for the World’s Fair 1893.

A black and white photo of the Arizona mining exhibit from the World’s Fair shows many cases of rock, including one large case with the same block of stone in the middle. The stone’s color fades up to highlight where it is.

HARLOW: And after the exhibit was finished,

HARLOW reappears on screen.

HARLOW: it was shipped here to the Museum as a gift.

The camera spins around the malachite block in the present-day mineral hall.

HARLOW: It’s 7,000 pounds, which represents about 4,000 pounds of copper, which is what its fate would have been

Closeup of the blue and green swirls within the bumpy rock face.

HARLOW: if it had been left in the mine. But it’s been preserved for us as our exemplar specimen

We see the Bisbee Arizona case in the new mineral hall, containing many colorful blue and green and copper-colored minerals.

HARLOW: from Bisbee Arizona which we actually have a very good collection from.

The screen flashes through a few closeups of the brightly colored minerals in the case. HARLOW reappears on screen.

HARLOW: Now, why is it called The Singing Stone?

An archival black-and-white photograph of the old Museum mineral hall shows rows of minerals in wooden and glass cases. On the back wall is a large case with a large stone block in it, which is highlighted and circled on screen.

HARLOW: Back in the day when it was exhibited in the halls when there was no air conditioning,

An inset photograph shows a closer look at the interior of the highlighted case, and we can see that it’s the same stone block with swirls of color in it.

HARLOW: it would start to squeak. The minerals have water molecules

The camera looks closely at the surface of the stone in color, with many holes and bumpy crevices on its surface.

HARLOW: that can come and go out of the structure, and when they do that the mineral actually changes its shape slightly,

HARLOW reappears on screen.

HARLOW: and make little singing sounds. “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” things like that. I’ve never heard that, because in general

Archival photos of visitors looking at the Singing Stone in the previous versions of the mineral halls.

HARLOW: we’ve had the specimen under reasonably good conditions of temperature and humidity. But if you raise the humidity a lot,

The Singing Stone, brightly lit, in the present-day mineral halls.

HARLOW: then you start hearing it sing.

The Singing Stone fades to black. Fading up from black we see a large slab of white and black-speckled rock. The light changes and the rock turns neon orange with green stripes. HARLOW appears on screen.

HARLOW: The slab behind me is a big piece of, actually marble, but it’s an ore-bearing marble

Closeup of the black and white surface of the marble slab. HARLOW reappears on screen.

HARLOW: that comes from Odgensburg, New Jersey. I knew that the fluorescence from this locality is famous world-wide,

Silhouettes of people gathered around a rock face at night, which is glowing the same bright orange with green stripes.

HARLOW: but seeing specimens that give you the scale, don’t exist.

A wire-saw machine cuts through the mine wall.

HARLOW: We hired stonecutters from Italy who used wiresaws

A bulldozer arm pulls the slab away from the wall of the mine and it falls flat on the ground.

HARLOW: and we sliced through it like a piece of cheese.

People in hard hats gather around the stone slab on the ground and hose it down. Closeup of the wet surface of the rock.

HARLOW: Fluoresence is the property

A hand holds a chunk of speckles white rock and passes a light over it, at which point it changes to orange with green.

HARLOW: where you shine ultraviolet light on something and

Images of other rocks glowing pink, blue, white, and green under ultraviolet light.

HARLOW: the energy release is equivalent to the wavelength of light.

HARLOW reappears on screen.

HARLOW: You can see the layers in it–

Closeup of one of the green stripes in the rock. Text appears: “Willemite.”

HARLOW: willemite, which glows green in ultraviolet light,

Closeup of the orange areas of the rock. Text appears: “Calcite”

HARLOW: and the calcite which is the limestone part of it, glows a bright orange color.

The camera pans over the stripes of orange and green in the rock slab.

HARLOW: So this is like a layer cake. You can actually see the age through time.

HARLOW reappears on screen.

HARLOW: And so the idea was not only to have like this incredible scale of what you could see,

We see the entire slab of rock glowing orange and green.

HARLOW: but also the details of what the geology is there.

The glowing slab fades to black. Fading up from black, we are flying backwards through the new mineral hall, backwards from the tall sparkling geode.

FUTTER: The minerals throughout these galleries are so spectacular,

Cases of colorful minerals and closeups of mineral surfaces.

FUTTER: so multicolored, so indicative of the diversity of forces and life on Earth,

FUTTER reappears on screen.

FUTTER: and they represent a treasure trove for demonstrating

More minerals and gems in cases of different shapes and colors.

FUTTER: the importance and the power of our planet. So there’s something for everyone that’s familiar and new,

FUTTER reappears on screen.

FUTTER: and it will be a great fun for all—and a great learning experience, too.

[END MUSIC]

Credits roll.

Video
AMNH / L. Stevens

Additional Camera
AMNH / L. Rifkind & D. Finnin
Working Pictures, Inc.

Images / Archive
AMNH / D. Finnin
AMNH / Library Archives
Graeme-Larkin Collection

Sound Effects
FreeSound.org / mitchellsounds

Music
“Hoping” by Martin Hilton (PRS) / Warner/Chappell Production Music

“Adaptation” by Ben Howels (PRS) / Warner/Chappell Production Music

“Passing of Time” by A.D.A.M Habraken (BUMA) & Jesse J. Maasdam (BUMA) / Warner/Chappell Production Music

“Seed and Spore” by David Alexander (PRS) / Warner/Chappell Production Music