The David J. Fitzgerald Museum of Earth Sciences
The David J. Fitzgerald Museum of Earth Sciences is an educational addition to the Environmental Science department. This museum contains exhibits that display the findings of various minerals, fossils and other geological elements. Below is a sample of the many items collected over the years that have allowed students and staff to create the captivating museum we have today.
To see the collection in person, visit us in Garni Science Hall, Second Floor. There you will find maps and descriptive infographics that showcase all the samples featured within the cabinets.
Specimen of the Month
September 2023: Crinoids
Crinoids, are marine animals that attach to the sea bottom. The variety that have a stalk are commonly referred to as “sea lilies”. These creatures first show up in the fossil record during the mid-Cambrian part of the Paleozoic era and were much larger and prolific at that time then specimens today. Different species of crinoids have been present on the Earth for about 500 million years. You can read more about the history of crinoid evolution here.
Because crinoids grow in marine environments, finding fossils of these animals tells scientists that the rocky areas where they are found were once covered with water. This helps to construct the geologic history of our planet.
The stem pieces, as shown in the front of the image, are the most commonly found portion of the crinoid in the fossil record. The tentacles or “flowers” are typically a rarer find. The other specimen in the image shows multiple flowers and the structure tells us about the type of crinoid. This species is a Scyphocrinites elegans from the Silurian time period. Many of these specimens can be found in modern-day Morocco.
Past Featured Specimens
August 2023: Dinosaur Footprint Reproductions
The Fitzgerald Earth Science Museum is fortunate to have on display reproductions made of tracks from two different dinosaur species. The display was created by pouring plaster into two footprints found in the Paluxy River, west of Glen Rose, Texas, to create casts. Two expeditions by St. Mary’s faculty from the Biology Department were made in 1940 to collect the casts. The hardened casts were then used to make new impressions in the plaster base that is on display.
The two tracks seen on the reproduction are from animals that existed around 120 million years ago. The shapes of the different tracks tell a story about what life lived in the area. The rounded impression is from a Sauropod, one of the species of vegetarian gentle giants that roamed the landscape like the well-known Brontosaurus. The three-toed track is made by a bipedal, carnivorous dinosaur similar to a Tyrannosaurus.
Dinosaur tracks such as these can be viewed in a number of locations in Texas, such as Government Canyon State Natural Area, The Heritage Museum of the Texas Hill Country and Dinosaur Valley State Park.
You can also learn more about dinosaurs at the Texas Memorial Museum, the Witte Museum, the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Perot Museum of Nature and Science.
August 2023: Dinosaur Footprint Reproductions
July 2023: Fungia
Origin: Unknown
Species: F. fungites
These solitary species live freely amongst the waters and come from the Miocene period. They can be found today in places of the Indo-West Pacific, Western Central Pacific, and Western Indian Ocean, as well as the Northwest Pacific. These round plates move often and can move up to 12” per day (30cm). Their movement is carried by the water and currents. The water is also a safety harness for these small creatures as when they are buried under sediments or sand, they fill up their tissues with water to then release it and to be taken with the current as transportation.
Fungia corals are shaped as round disks that have short tentacles that can retract during the day and or the night. They often retract their tentacles themselves when they feel harmed or disturbed. Their mouths are sticking out on top of one another from the center and can have various sizes of mouths. Because there can be exposure to their mouths, a parasite called bivalve gastropod Faungiacava eilatensis lives in their mouths. The fungia often get their sources from small organisms and nutrients from dissolved organic matter.
July 2023: Fungia
June 2023: Great White Shark Tooth
Origin: South Carolina
Species: Carcharodon megalodon
Great white sharks are one of the world’s largest predators alive and evolved from ancient sharks called the Megalodon (Carcharodon or otodus megalodon). This specific specimen originates from the Miocene Epoch, 23.03 to 5.3 million years ago, which was a time of a warmer climate for many years and other animals during this evolution. There was research found on shark population numbers from the Miocene epoch, that questioned a possible wipe-out of nearly 90% of sharks declined by data showing a difference in sediments of shark fossils.
They live in the oceans and are found all around the globe including places in the coastal areas and offshore with water temperatures of 12 to 24 degrees Celsius (54- and 75 degrees Fahrenheit.) High concentrations of the species can be found in the United States, Japan, Oceania, Chile, South Africa and the Mediterranean.
June 2023: Great White Shark Tooth
May 2023: Malachite
Oppenheimer Collection
Origin: Unknown
Mineral Type: Copper carbonate hydroxide
Malachite comes from the oxidizing zone in the shallows of the Earth around copper deposits. They often fall from solutions in caverns, cavities, and intergranular spaces of porous rocks. Their composition is mostly of carbonate and copper minerals, so, there are rarely any crystals to be found and are usually acicular and mostly clear. Their gravity range is high from 3.6 to 4.0, meaning that because of this property, the green mineral is easy to identify.
Malachite was first found in areas of Egypt and Israel and over 4000 years ago were they mined for the making of copper. Though they were mainly produced for copper, these days they are not used as often, and much of the market on malachite comes from deposits in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as Australia, France, and Arizona.
May 2023: Malachite
April 2023: Aragonite
Oppenheimer Collection (Kathi and John Oppenheimer, Law School Class of 68’)
Mineral Type: Carbonate mineral
Location: Australia
The Aragonite photographed above is also a part of the newest addition to the David Fitzgerald J. Museum, the Oppenheimer Collection. Aragonite is a high-pressure polymorph of calcium carbonate; therefore, it occurs in high-pressure metamorphic rock such as those formed in subduction zones.Aragonite are tabular, prismatic or needle-like often with steep pyramidal-shaped ends. Samples can be white, colorless, gray, yellowish, green, blue, reddish, purple or brown. Aragonite provides essential materials for marine life and keeps the pH of the water close to its natural level to prevent the dissolution of biogenic calcium carbonate.
April 2023: Aragonite
March 2023: Brush Coral
Acropora Hyacinthus
Location: Unknown
Brush coral is the most abundant coral of exposed outer reef slopes and is mostly found in the upper reef slopes and outer reef flats. Brush corals are grouped in colonies which can be observed as wide flat plates and tables or tiered aggregations of small plates. Branchlets are thin and finely structured except when exposed to wave action, which then become closely fused. Branchlets are fine and upward-projecting. It is thought to have a range that includes the Indian Ocean, the Indo-Pacific waters, southeast Asia, Japan, the East China Sea and the western Pacific Ocean. Figures of its population are unknown, but it is likely to be threatened by the global reduction of coral reefs, and the increase in temperature causing coral bleaching.The image shown above shows the physical consequences of coral bleaching in which the colorful appearance of coral is taken away, leaving a white cast as seen in this sample.
March 2023: Brush Coral
February 2023: Fluorite
Oppenheimer Collection (Kathi and John Oppenheimer, Law School Class of 68’)
Mineral Type: Fluorite
Location: Blanchard Mine, New Mexico
The Fluorite pictured is a part of the Oppenheimer Collection, found in Blanchard Mine, New Mexico. Fluorites are mainly found in hydrothermal veins.
Fluorites are pore-filling materials found in carbonate rocks like limestone and dolostones. When it comes to the hydrothermal veins, they are through low and high-temperature hydrothermal fluids and can be rich in fluorite. They can be found all over the world in different places. As well as other minerals in granites, greisen, pegmatites and other veins with higher temperatures.
The mineral itself is made up of calcium fluoride. It can come in different colors and sizes. Some common colors of Fluorite are purple, blue, brown, gold, yellow and lilac. Fluorite can be used for many different things such as flux or smelting for varieties of chemical, metallurgical and ceramic processes.
As far as manufacturing goes, Fluorite was used to manufacture chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) for refrigerants and aerosol sprays. Recent studies have shown that it has contributed to concerns about CFCs’ impact of the Earth’s ozone layer.