School Assemblies and After School Programs
Fossil and Mineral ID Chart

Our School Assemblies and After School Programs end with an incredible Genuine Fossil Dig and an opportunity to Pan for Gems and Minerals. Using a fossil and mineral ID Chart students identify the fossil and minerals they found. A great hands-on learning experience.

Genuine Fossil Dinosaur Bone Dinosaurs or "Terrible Lizards", appeared and lived During the Mesozoic era between 230 and 65 million years ago.  Dinosaurs were divided into two orders based on the structure of their pelvic bone; the Saurischia (reptile-hipped) and the Ornithischia (bird-hipped).  They were both meat-eating dinosaurs (carniverous) and plant eating dinosaurs (herbivores).  Both groups had extremes in size from giants 100 feet long down to the size of turkeys.	Petrified Wood Trees began fossilizing when climatic conditions covered them with mud, sand, or volcanic ash before they rotted.  Water seeped through the mud and sand into the buried logs.  It filled the empty cells of the decaying wood and mineral matter until after millions of years all the wood of the tree was gone and rocks and minerals were in its place.  It had turned into solid stone.  Some fossil wood still shows original wood structure, even under a microscope.  Petrified forests date from different geological periods.  This wood is over 150 million years old.
Copal Amber Amber, or fossil tree sap, was made famous in the movie "Jurassic Park". Amber is a beautiful stone that is cut and polished and used as a valuable gemstone. It is also a fossil and can contain many preserved insects and other animals and plants that are tens of millions of years old. The odd inclusions that are often seen in amber usually add to amber's unique look and in many cases greatly increase its value. The fossils that are encased in amber probably got there when they flew or crawled on to the fresh seeping sap and then got stuck. The sap oozed over the trapped animals and perhaps fell to the ground and was later covered by dirt and debris. The sap later hardened and became a fossil.	Elrathia Kinghi TRILOBITES Trilobites From the mid-Cambrian period, 550 million years old, trilobites are an extinct form of marine life occurring in the Wheeler shale.  These many legged arthropods roamed the sandy bottoms of the seas & coral reefs in search of food.  Trilobites were the first invertebrate form of life on the earth.  Found in Millard Co., Utah.
Fossil Horn Coral From the Mississippian period of 325 million years ago, horn coral looked much like the coral that is in the sea today. Millions of tiny coral animals called (polyps) all join together. This cluster looked like fingers. Their tententacles sticking our resembled a bunch of tiny flowers at one end. Found in Confusion Range, Millard, Utah.	Pyrite Suns
Ammonites The sea reptile (AM uh nyte, which means "coiled horn" was an air-breathing animal. This invertebrate creature looked somewhat like and is an ancestor of the octopus and the squid, except its body was covered by a coiled chambered shell. Ammonites first appeared in the Permian Period, 250 million years ago and flourished throughout the Mesozoic Era. Many had ornate ribs and markings on the outsides of their shells. By the end of the Cretaceous Period, changes in geography had affected them and ammonites were completely wiped out.	Fossil Clam A Fossil Brachiopod. Brachiopods were a form of marine life which resembled clams. They were a solitary animal with very little power of movement. They had soft bodies covered with two shells hinged together. Most brachiopods have ornamented shells, while a few species are smooth. Fossil brachiopods were in existence from the Paleozoic Era thru the Mesozoic Era, and range in age from 100 million to 600 million years old. They perhaps the most abundant fossil animal and are found in many areas of the world.
Fossil Shell Gastropod (also called univalves) are a type of mollusk that have a single valve (a shell, which is sometimes reduced or even absent) and a muscular foot. There are over 90,000 species of gastropods worldwide, both in the water and on land. Some gastropods include snails, whelks, and slugs. Classification: Phylum Mollusca, Class Gastropoda	Crinoid Stem Crinoids were creatures that looked like flowers on thick stems. Small discs, usually round, stacked together to form the stems. The parts of the crinoid that looks like flower petals are its arms. With these arms the crinoid catches its food in the water. Crinoid means "like a lily". During the Mississippian period they covered many parts of the sea bottom, but today only a few kinds are left.
Fossil Shark Teeth	Fossil Megalodon Shark Teeth
Fossil Stingray Crusher Plates	Fossil Sea Urchin

 

Agates

 

 

GEMSTONE ID CHART

Amethyst Amethyst is the purple variety of quartz and is a popular gemstone. If it were not for its widespread availability, amethyst would be very expensive. The name "amethyst" comes from the Greek and means "not drunken." This was maybe due to a belief that amethyst would ward off the effects of alcohol, but most likely the Greeks were referring to the almost wine-like color of some stones that they may have encountered. Its color is unparalleled, and even other, more expensive purple gemstones are often compared to its color and beauty. Although it must always be purple to be amethyst, it can and does have a wide range of purple shades.	Citrine Citrine is a beautiful yellow stone. Named from the French name for lemon, "citron," many citrines have a juicy lemon color. Like amethyst, citrine is a gem variety of quartz. The gem's varying yellow color comes from trace elements of iron. It is a popular less expensive alternative to the much more expensive yellow sapphire or yellow diamond. To create wonderful multi-colored jewelry, it is often combined with other stones such as: peridot, amethyst, and garnet. November Birthstone.
Hematite Color is steel or silver gray to black in some forms and red to brown in earthy forms. Sometimes tarnished with irredescent colors when in a hydrated form (called Turgite). Luster is metallic or dull in earthy and oolitic forms. Transparency: Crystals are opaque. Crystal System is trigonal; bar 3 2/m Crystal Habits include tabular crystals of varying thickness sometimes twinned, micaceous (specular), botryoidal and massive. also earthy or oolitic. Cleavage is absent however there is a parting on two planes. Fracture is uneven. Hardness is 5 - 6	Kyanite Kyanite is a polymorph with two other minerals; andalusite and sillimanite. A polymorph is a mineral that shares the same chemistry but a different crystal structure with another, or other, minerals. Kyanite is an attractive mineral that has a near sapphire like blue color in some especially nice specimens. Kyanite has a unique characteristic in that it has a wide variation in hardness, in the same crystal. The hardness of kyanite is approximately 4.5 when scratched parallel to the long axis of the crystal and approximately 6.5 when scratched perpendicular to or across the long axis. Other minerals usually have variable hardness on different crystal faces due to a different concentration and oreintation of the atoms in the structure.  Diamond  is one such mineral, a fact gem cutters take advantage of often.
Pyrite Pyrite is the classic "Fool's Gold". There are other shiny brassy yellow minerals, but pyrite is by far the most common and the most often mistaken for gold . Whether it is the golden look or something else, pyrite is a favorite among rock collectors. It can have a beautiful luster and interesting crystals. It is so common in the earth's crust that it is found in almost every possible environment, hence it has a vast number of forms and varieties.	Quartz Quartz is the most common mineral on the face of the Earth. It is found in nearly every geological environment and is at least a component of almost every rock type. It frequently is the primary mineral, >98%. It is also the most varied in terms of varieties, colors and forms. This variety comes about because of the abundance and widespread distribution of quartz. A collector could easily have hundreds of quartz specimens and not have two that are the same due to the many broad categories.
RUBIES	EMERALD
TOPAZ	PERIDOT
HERKIMER DIAMONDS	GARNET
AQUAMARINE	TOURMALINE
GREEN CALCITE	RED CALCITE
ORANGE CALCITE	CHALCOPYRITE