NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY: ZUHL MUSEUM

Tuesday, January 24 cont. – After our great visit to the Las Cruces Railroad Museum, our next stop was pretty amazing! The Zuhl Museum on the campus of New Mexico State University.

The Zuhl Collection contains over 1,800 beautiful specimens of petrified wood, fossils and minerals. It is interesting to see petrified samples from different areas of the country and how they differ in color and mineral content. Most of these samples are polished to a very high degree of gloss and are absolutely beautiful.

One tiny corner of this awesome museum.

Each piece has a number so that we can easily identify it. We couldn’t get over how old these pieces are. This collection is considered the finest collection of petrified wood on display in the country.

This piece is from AZ dated back 251-199 million years ago.

This piece is from Nevada dated back 23-5.3 million years ago.

This piece is from AZ dated back 251-199 million years ago.

The collection also boasts many awe-inspiring fossils. Pieces from every time period from the stunning Banded Iron Formation (3 billion years old) to an entire nest of Oviraptor dinosaur eggs (65-70 million years old). Not to be left out are the breathtaking minerals in the collection.

Petrified Crab.

Trilobites were common invertebrate animals that lived in the Paleozoic seas. They were among the first animals to have legs and eyes.

One dinosaur vertebrae.

Clear Quartz found in Arkansas. Age: 180-200 million years old.

Amethyst.

What an awesome museum. Don’t miss this gem when visiting El Paso.

We are way behind in posting. We have been boondocking the last four days near Maricopa, AZ.  We are headed for Yuma on Wednesday.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day.