Discover the Past at Cave of the Mounds! 🦕🦈🦑
Join us every Sunday in February for our Fossil Tour Series! Explore the fascinating world of fossils and enjoy themed weeks perfect for all ages:
Shark Week 2nd-8th: Dive into the prehistoric ocean and uncover ancient shark fossils!
Mission Ordovician 9th-15th: Journey back 450 million years to the Ordovician Period and discover marine fossils.
Dino Week 16th-22nd: Travel through time to learn about the incredible dinosaurs that once roamed the Earth.
Thank you to greenTONE a cappella for their amazing concert last Saturday!
Thank you to Deliberate Vibration for a wonderful performance in our Cave last Friday!
Yet another type of quartz, aventurine is typically green or blue in color but can also appear as nearly every other color of the rainbow. Aventurine contains inclusions of small flecks and plates that cause a sparkly, glittery appearance known as aventurescence which gives it great value as a gemstone. Most commonly, these inclusions are made of fuchsite, a type of mica. While aventurine is found in many countries, India remains the top producer in the world. It has a hardness of between 6.5 and 7 on the Mohs scale, which is made weaker by abundant mica inclusions.
PART TWO! Who is your favorite teacher? We have many teachers come to Cave of the Mounds, both as a guest or on a field trip. It has been a delight to meet a variety of teachers who are passionate about their kids. Our Assistant General Manager was highly impacted by her French teachers, Mme Kinnaman and Mme Meilhon. Although they would get frustrated or become exhausted by all the teenage kids, they taught valuable lessons beyond French.
JoAnn is a retired teacher from the Mount Horeb School District. She brings her love of education and connecting with children to the cave.
Who is your favorite teacher? We asked our staff who their favorite teacher was! Teachers are so important and their impact can last a lifetime!
Memories of giving tours to field trips. We have field trips all year round. It is so much fun to see the spark of joy kids get and then have them come back decades later to reignite that spark!
Peacock Ore. The truly named peacock ore, Bornite is a copper iron sulfide; the term “peacock ore” was given to Bornite by miners due to its colorful tarnish. It is found in crystalline varieties in England and France, but more massive varieties are found in the southwestern United States and are mined for their economic importance as an ore of copper. It has a hardness of 3 on the Mohs scale.
Also known as Fool’s Gold, pyrite is an iron sulfide mineral. It owes its nickname to its brassy-gold color, which was known to confuse inexperienced miners. It occurs all over the world in metamorphic, igneous, and sedimentary rocks, and, interestingly, it can often be found in the same localities as gold. In order to form, it requires abundant amounts of iron and sulphur as well as an anaerobic, or low oxygen, environment. Since these qualifications are easily met by decaying matter, it is not uncommon to find fossils that have had their matter replaced by pyrite; shells are a particularly common example. Pyrite has a hardness between 6 and 6.5 on the Mohs scale.
What is your favorite field trip? We asked our guides where their favorite field trip was. They said things like the capitol, a prairie, Aldo Leopold Nature Center, and more!
PART FOUR! Memories of field trips to Cave of the Mounds!
