ARCHIVES OF THE EARTH: FROM ROCKS TO FOSSIL ORGANISMS

The exhibition explores the geological and paleontological features of the region. The geological section presents minerals of different types and geological periods, demonstrating a wide variety of materials collected both locally and from various regions of Ukraine and the world. The collection includes sulfides such as galena, pyrite, and tetrahedrite; oxygen-compound minerals such as quartz, silicon oxide, magmatic formations, magnetite and titanomagnetite ores, iron hydroxides; as well as garnet, several types of mica, chlorites, feldspars, and more. Also displayed are rocks and minerals from the Horishni Plavni, Lavrykivka, and Yerystivka deposits, including banded iron formations (jaspilite), taconite, itabirite, various quartz types, shales, pyrite, granite, breccia, and sandstone. The paleontological section takes visitors back to the era of the first living organisms and the ancient Tethys Sea, which existed here about 300 million years ago. It features fossil remains of its inhabitants—mollusks, sea urchins, corals, ancient sharks, and other organisms that lived during the Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous periods. A highlight of the exhibition is a model of the Basilosaurus, an ancient cetacean that lived during the middle and late Eocene, approximately 40–37 million years ago. Fossilized bones of this animal were discovered at the bottom of the Kremenchuk Reservoir and are now displayed in one of the exhibition cases.