PAN MUZEUM ZIEMI W WARSZAWIE

We proudly present the ninth permanent exhibition dedicated to amber in the premises of the Polish Academy of Sciences Museum of the Earth. This time, attention was paid to the distribution of amber and other fossil resins in Poland and in the world. Apart from specimens illustrating the richness of amber varieties and remarkable world of inclusions (animal and plant), we also present research interpretations on the genesis of amber and reconstruction of the amber forest. By means of raw materials from Sambia (Russia), Ukraine and Bitterfeld (Germany) as well as secondary deposits of the Baltic Sea shoreline, it has been identified where amber deposits were made at least 40 million years ago, where it can be found in Poland and why exactly there.

The section dedicated to the use of amber presents variety of its types, amber processing techniques and products related to folk medicine and traditional beliefs. A special component of the exhibition are fossil resins from all over the world (different from Baltic amber), which nowhere else in Poland – apart from the Museum of the Earth – can be admired in such diversity.

Meteorites have always been of particular interest. Traces of fascination with the mysterious „stones from the sky” can be found in the oldest manuscripts. Collection of meteorites presented at our exhibition was gathered by the Museum of the Earth Society before World War II. The newest specimens come from recent years. At the exhibition, Polish meteorites (including the unique collection of Pułtusk and Łowicz meteorites) deserve special attention. In addition to objects from the asteroid belt, we also present very rare meteorites originating from the Moon and Mars. The exhibition of meteorites collections gathered in the Polish Academy of Sciences Museum of the Earth creates an extraordinary opportunity to meet exceptional „guests from the space”.

Stone has accompanied us since the dawn of mankind. Initially, it was a material for creating simple tools. With the development of humanity, its use has changed to such extent that many ultra-modern technologies cannot be refined without mineral resources.

The exhibition presents a rich collection of rocks and minerals accompanying the everyday human life, both today and in the past. An overview of minerals with diverse application was supplemented by information on their properties, legends related to them and commonly used imitations.

The exhibition pertains to issues that are of interest to historical geology. It intends to explain how information concerning the Earth’s past is collected. With the use of selected examples illustrated by exhibits from often unique sites, our exhibition allows to understand the path of individual fossils and rocks to interpret the evolution of entire plant and animal groups. Moreover, it is also possible to reproduce changes of the past taking place in natural environments in the scale of regions, continents and the globe.

The exhibition on dynamic geology presents the most important phenomena and processes shaping the Earth. The purpose of the exposition is to explain processes occurring under the impact of external geological factors such as weathering, erosion, mass movement, sedimentation and processes caused by internal geological circumstance taking place in the Earth’s crust or in its interior. Our exhibition provides a synthesis outlining the effects of such processes as: diastrophism, volcanism, plutonism or metamorphism. The exhibition is illustrated with a deliberately selected collection of rock and mineral specimens.

The exhibition shows the position and peculiarity of our planet comparing to other objects in the Solar System. The space-oriented aspect of the exhibition is complemented by a section dedicated to impact craters being unique geological structures formed during collision with meteorites, comets or asteroids with the Earth’s surface The issues concerning atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere of the Earth are illustrated by satellite images and this also emphasises the outer-space extent of phenomena taking place on our planet.