Natural History Museum: Rocks and Gems

The Natural History Museum houses a fascinating collection of rocks, minerals and semi-precious stones.  We couldn't get into the Museum's Vault room like last time  to see the gem collection, but there was still plenty to see.  The children complained before we even set out that I would bore them to death by standing around for ever by the gems trying to take pictures.  The complained when I got there and did so, then they complained some more afterwards that they only wanted to see the animals and volcanoes and not rocks.  I was unapologetic and ignored the complaining.

Some of these rocks and minerals are displayed around the museum, the sparkliest gems were in an exhibit called Earth's Treasury:

A rare kind of Fluorite called Blue John only found in Derbyshire, England, a source which is almost exhausted:

Mother of Pearl:

This one stopped me in my tracks, veins of opal in iron-rich rock from Australia:

Green Chalcedony, reminds me of the sea: