Rockhounds Will Dig This MTSU Museum MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- Middle Tennessee rockhounds may have to do a bit of digging to reach the treasures buried in Middle Tennessee State University's Ezell Hall, but the museum jewel they'll find here will be worth the trip. Dr. Albert Ogden, a professor of geosciences at the university, has just opened the MTSU-Department of Geosciences Mineral, Gem and Fossil Museum, to which he's devoted just about every spare moment since joining the MTSU family. He donated $20,000 worth of specimens from his personal collection, adding geological specimens loaned by Murfreesboro resident Lewis Elrod, former president of the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies, and MTSU professors Dr. Aaron Todd and Dr. Linda Wilson, as well as specimens and jewelry from the Middle Tennessee Gem and Mineral Society and 50 specimens donated by Vanderbilt University. MTSU Liberal Arts Dean John McDaniel and MTSU President Dr. Sidney A. McPhee located space for the facility in Ezell, a former dormitory now being renovated for faculty offices and music production studios. The museum, which also will be used as a teaching lab for geosciences students, is now open to the public on Saturdays from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. Thirty framed color photographs, taken by Ogden at U.S. national parks and other geologic wonders, dot the off-white walls of the museum's immaculate main rooms, one of which includes space for presentations. Ogden and his assistants, Matt Fahner, Doug Hayes and Anna Teagarden, also set up a small room devoted to mineral specimens that fluoresce when exposed to black light, an increasingly rare feature in mineral museums. "This is all I've done for the last six months of my life," the professor joked as a class of 40 third-graders from McFadden Elementary School gazed into the spacious cabinets -- provided via a $5,000 grant from the MTSU Foundation -- at the professionally displayed and labeled specimens. "Take your time, look slowly," teacher Lark Petty cautioned her students, the museum's first visitors. "Let's read where they came from. Do you know we can never see some of these things again, except right here in Dr. Ogden's museum?" Their whispered squeals of "India! … ooh, Russia … my birthstone! … and mososaur teeth! From Madagascar!" echoed adult visitors' reactions to a Moroccan ammonoid plate that looks like a pile of shiny fountain pens and delicate fish fossils from a Wyoming quarry owned by a Tennessee native. "I just love seeing the excitement of those kids," said Ogden. "Now I get to tell kids why geology is so exciting!" Groups can make reservations for a weekday visit by calling (615) 898-4877 or e-mailing Ogden at aogden@mtsu.edu. Return to Murfreesboro Home © 2001-2008 Devault Interactive. All rights reserved.