• Şehit Cuma DAĞ
  Natural History Museum
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• Mineralogy Petrography
  • Mineralogy Petrography Unit
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  • Rocks
  • Evaporites Gemstones
  • Underground Resources In Turkey
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  • Meteorities
  • Fulgurite (Lightning Stone)
  • Natural Cave Model
  • Solar System
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Evaporites-Gemstones

There is a section of evaporites-gemstones on the second floor of the museum.

Evaporites

Rocks occur due to the evaporation of water. Evaporites occur by the sedimentation of dissolved compounds in the water by the evaporation of the lakes or shallow water bodies in arid and semi-arid areas. The most abundant evaporite minerals are gypsum, anhydrite and halite.

Boron

Boron is one of the most important industrial raw materials of our country. Turkey owns 2/3 of the total boron reserves in the world. Borax, colemanite, ulexite, kernite are important boron minerals. Colemanite, borax (tinkal) and ulexite are found in Turkey. Crystalline collemanite minerals are exhibited in the evaporites section. They are used in numerous fields such as nuclear fields, glass and ceramic industry, defense industry and agriculture.

Gemstones

Gemstones are inorganic and organic materials which have three important features such as beauty, rarity and endurance. Apart from these basic features, the value of gemstones are determined by some of the features such as transparency, clarity, cuttability, polishability, light and color play. Gemstones are examined by gemology units. Gemology is a sub-branch of mineralogy.
Both domestic and abroad, many gemstones such as emerald, ruby, aquamarine, amber, amethyst, quartz are exhibited in our museum. In addition, minerals such as sepiolite, jet, transparent crystal diaspore, kemmererite, which are well known with the Turkish name in the world, are also exhibited in Gemology section.

Diaspore

The big transparent crystal diaspores which are found nowhere else in the world except Turkey have a great significance among gemstones of our country.

Kammererite

Kammererite crystals which are purple, violet and micaceous, are found at the Kop Mountain in Erzincan. Kammererite, which is one of the rare stones unique to Turkey, attracts attention as being decorative and collectible

Jet

Jet is the best organic gemstone in our country. The most striking feature of the jet is being soft when it is removed from the earth's crust. It preserves it’s softness until being in contact with air.

Because of this feature it is easy to process the ore. Jet is removed from the Oltu district of Erzurum.

Meerschaum(Sepiolite)

Sepiolite is a white, massive clay mineral. Meerschaum is a stone unique to Eskişehir region.