15 FIRST FLOOR EXHIBITS F irst Floor Exhibits St one T ablet As you enter the building on your lef t you will see a tablet made of Spar tan Pink granite from Georgia This memorial whic h car ries the inscription A generation comes a generation goes the Ear th remains forever Ecclesiastes 14 w as a gif t from Mr s Barbara Campbell to her husband Ar thur B Camp bell a GS A F ellow Stone w ork w as crafted b y Milton Erickson Erickson Memorial Co Denv er Colorado Riv er Sculpt ur ed Gr anit e Boulder ak a Big Al W alk inside and into the lobby atrium and you can t miss ita 3 m 9 f thigh 8ton boulder from the Big Thompson Ri ver whic h fows out of the R oc k y Mountains just west of F or t Collins Colorado Known af fectionately by staf f as Big Al this giant piece of Silver Plume granite carved and polished by sand and gravel car ried by the Big Thompson and its predecessor s epitomiz es the enduring nature of our S ociety our science and our Ear th through its massi ve appearance F ound b y F red Hand y Donated b y Mrs Robert Danielson on behalf of her father Charles W ebb Shaler and P enr ose Busts If you look behind you on either side of the front door you will see busts of GS A s founding father s Nathaniel S outhg ate Shaler and Ric hard AF P enrose Jr P enrose s recreated offce is to the lef t of the front atrium Bronze busts b y sculptor Robert Aitk en Orbicular Biotit e S y enodior it e On the w alls adjacent to eac h bust are specimens of orbicular biotite syeno diorite This type of roc k typically forms deep in Ear th s crust in quar tzpoor z ones near the edges of large granitic magma bodies The center s of the eyelik e orbicules are pieces of roc k that fell into the mag ma The rings around them are minerals that precipitated one layer at a time as the magma slowly cooled and gradually c hanged in composition The in ner rings formed fr st and tend to be composed of dark er higher temperature minerals than the outer rings but cer tain conditions suc h as par tial melting of the trapped roc k fragments led to the precipitation of some lightcolored inner rings Florence K oopman noticed this unusual roc k in a 5f twide dik e that cuts through P recambrian granites and sc hists near Albuquerque New Mexico Her husband geologist F rancis G K oopman cut these slabs with a homemade wire saw Gift from F rancis G and Florence K oopman Miser it e with W ollast onit e T o the lef t of the Shaler bust and orbicular biotite specimen is a specimen of miserite with wollastonite The pink mineral por tion of this specimen is miserite an uncommon silicate containing the rare ear th element cesium The grayish white mineral is wollastonite It commonly forms fbrous masses of elong ate brit tle crystals that break with a splintery fracture W ollastonite forms in metamorphosed impure limestones It is used in ceramics and as a fller in paints rubber and plastics Miserite w as named in honor of longtime GS A F ellow Hugh D Miser F rom the Union Carbide V anadium Mine in P otash Springs Arkansas Gift from Charles Milton of George W ashington Univ ersity and the US Geological Surv e y