We trekked out to Historic Fort Snelling to gather some information information on Native American earthworks and artifacts in our park system. Bruce quickly set to work sharing information and showing us how to use their system. It's a paper and pencil system... it was a little scary that nothing was backed up digitally.
After we gathered the information we were looking for Bruce asked if we'd like a tour of the facility and our afternoon went from good to AWESOME!
We toured their lab where artifacts are brought back, sorted and cataloged. (Nothing like CSI.) We walked through Indiana Jones-style vaults with artifacts that date back 9000 years and fingered beautiful rocks and stones from all over the world.
And finally, as Bruce was telling us what he loves most about our job. I learned about this:
It's an omar! You can't see the second hole in it, but there are two round depressions in this chunk of basalt that Chris and I found a couple of summers ago. We kept it because we thought it was cool and thought perhaps it was a cool Native American artifact, but it's not. However it does have a cool geologic story!
While this chunk of basalt were cooling years and years and years ago it collected, attracted, or received a mineral deposited that wasn't as structurally sound as the basalt. Over the years that deposit wore away leaving a very round depression.
That's way overly simplified, but you get the idea! And that's why I love my job. I get to meet people with all sorts of cool backgrounds and will learn new things when I least expect it!
