The Anne and Bernard Spitzer Hall of Human Origins presents the remarkable history of human evolution from our earliest ancestors millions of years ago to modern Homo sapiens. The Hall combines the most up-to-date discoveries in the fossil record with the latest in genomic science.
The Great Canoe has been carefully and thoroughly restored by Museum conservators, and the 17 life-size Northwest Coast Indian figures that peopled the canoe since 1910 have been removed and placed in storage. The Great Canoe has now been placed in a new position of elevated prominence, literally being raised more than seven feet off the ground.
From this spectacular new vantage point, "floating" above the heads of visitors, the artistry and beauty of the exterior of the Great Canoe is evident from all angles. This massive dugout canoe was carved from the trunk of a single large cedar tree.
The enormous canoe displays the work of craftsmen from more than one of the First Nations of British Columbia. Oral traditions from both the Haida and the Heiltsuk nations indicate strong associations with this canoe.
The American Museum of Natural History will unveil a display of 25 beautiful iridescent opals for public view in the Museum's Harry Frank Guggenheim Hall of Minerals. Opal deposits are found around the globe, but about 85 percent of the world's gem opals are mined in Queensland and New South Wales, Australia.
These opals come from a range of locations, including Australia, Brazil, Honduras, Ethiopia, and the United States. Renowned for their colorful iridescence, opals' unique internal structure creates their colors by scattering light.
Opal gemstones used in jewelry are relatively soft and fragile; they need protection from scratching, bumping, and abrupt temperature changes. Opal most commonly forms by the action of warm water on volcanic glass.
It can also form at low temperatures, when water rich with dissolved silica mixes with sediment or enters rocks. A two-foot-long slice from a jadeite jade boulder provides a spectacular window into the dramatic process that formed this highly prized type of jade.
The Museum's 77th Street Grand Gallery features a two-foot-diameter fossil, known as an ammonite. It is a large and particularly rare example of a marine animal that was once one of the most common invertebrates in the oceans.
Ammonites went extinct around 65 million years ago-the same time as most dinosaurs. The fossil's spectacular color is the result of nacre, the substance that made up the animal's shell, becoming fossilized and turning into a mineral known as aragonite.
The colors are produced by light reflecting off of layers within the fossilized shell and interacting, much the way oil on water produces a rainbow sheen. Ammonites that display this characteristic are known as ammolites and are found only in one particular geologic formation in western Canada.
Ammolite is one of only three gemstones produced by living organisms-the others being amber and pearls. One of the Museum's newest and most spectacular mineral specimens is a 1,000-pound stibnite with hundreds of sword-like, metallic blue-gray crystals sprouting from a rocky base.
Stibnite, a compound of the elements antimony and sulfur, occasionally forms nests of delicate, six-sided crystals, but examples this large and intricate are exceedingly rare. One of the premier attractions in New York City is the Museum's series of fossil halls, including its two famed dinosaur halls.
The Museum is home to the world's largest collection of vertebrate fossils, totaling nearly one million specimens. More than 600 of these specimens are on view.
The fossil halls now stand as a continuous loop on the fourth floor, telling the story of vertebrate evolution. Unlike most fossil exhibits the Museum's fossil halls display the specimens according to evolutionary relationships.
The Great Canoe has been carefully and thoroughly restored by Museum conservators, and the 17 life-size Northwest Coast Indian figures that peopled the canoe since 1910 have been removed and placed in storage. The Great Canoe has now been placed in a new position of elevated prominence, literally being raised more than seven feet off the ground.
From this spectacular new vantage point, "floating" above the heads of visitors, the artistry and beauty of the exterior of the Great Canoe is evident from all angles. This massive dugout canoe was carved from the trunk of a single large cedar tree.
The enormous canoe displays the work of craftsmen from more than one of the First Nations of British Columbia. Oral traditions from both the Haida and the Heiltsuk nations indicate strong associations with this canoe.
The American Museum of Natural History will unveil a display of 25 beautiful iridescent opals for public view in the Museum's Harry Frank Guggenheim Hall of Minerals. Opal deposits are found around the globe, but about 85 percent of the world's gem opals are mined in Queensland and New South Wales, Australia.
These opals come from a range of locations, including Australia, Brazil, Honduras, Ethiopia, and the United States. Renowned for their colorful iridescence, opals' unique internal structure creates their colors by scattering light.
Opal gemstones used in jewelry are relatively soft and fragile; they need protection from scratching, bumping, and abrupt temperature changes. Opal most commonly forms by the action of warm water on volcanic glass.
It can also form at low temperatures, when water rich with dissolved silica mixes with sediment or enters rocks. A two-foot-long slice from a jadeite jade boulder provides a spectacular window into the dramatic process that formed this highly prized type of jade.
The Museum's 77th Street Grand Gallery features a two-foot-diameter fossil, known as an ammonite. It is a large and particularly rare example of a marine animal that was once one of the most common invertebrates in the oceans.
Ammonites went extinct around 65 million years ago-the same time as most dinosaurs. The fossil's spectacular color is the result of nacre, the substance that made up the animal's shell, becoming fossilized and turning into a mineral known as aragonite.
The colors are produced by light reflecting off of layers within the fossilized shell and interacting, much the way oil on water produces a rainbow sheen. Ammonites that display this characteristic are known as ammolites and are found only in one particular geologic formation in western Canada.
Ammolite is one of only three gemstones produced by living organisms-the others being amber and pearls. One of the Museum's newest and most spectacular mineral specimens is a 1,000-pound stibnite with hundreds of sword-like, metallic blue-gray crystals sprouting from a rocky base.
Stibnite, a compound of the elements antimony and sulfur, occasionally forms nests of delicate, six-sided crystals, but examples this large and intricate are exceedingly rare. One of the premier attractions in New York City is the Museum's series of fossil halls, including its two famed dinosaur halls.
The Museum is home to the world's largest collection of vertebrate fossils, totaling nearly one million specimens. More than 600 of these specimens are on view.
The fossil halls now stand as a continuous loop on the fourth floor, telling the story of vertebrate evolution. Unlike most fossil exhibits the Museum's fossil halls display the specimens according to evolutionary relationships.
