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Science and Engineering

Geosciences Museum

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Opened in 1973, the museum's collections are curated by James Murowchick and Raymond Coveney, professors emeritus. Much of the museum’s fossil collection was amassed by the latter on trips to the Badlands in South Dakota.

student looks at display in the geosciences museum

Richard L. Sutton Jr. Geosciences Museum

The museum is free and open to the public. Group tours can be arranged by calling 816-235-2399.

Location

Miller Nichols Library
800 E. 51st Street, Room 329
Kansas City, MO 64110

Hours

Monday through Friday
7:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Weekends
11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Highlights of the collection

  • Cephalopods (squid-like ocean dwellers)
  • Fluid inclusions (rocks containing liquids), including a specimen of clear quartz you can tip to watch the trapped primordial water inside move
  • Crinoids, informally called “starfish on a stick,” which were once abundant in what is now downtown Kansas City, when the area was ringed by a shallow sea
  • Fulgurite, or lightning rock, which was formed when lightning, which generates heat up to 3,000, degrees Fahrenheit, struck the earth
  • Fossils collected from the Badlands of South Dakota