Geosciences at FHSU

10/02/2026

If you are heading out to Hays Oktoberfest festivities this afternoon or on Saturday, Sternberg Geosciences Club is ready to send you home with a pet rock, painted rock, or identified rock specimen for your personal collection. Stop by booth # 35 and support the club fundraising efforts!

10/01/2026

Oct. 1, 6:30 pm, Sternberg Museum. Interested in Paleontology, Fossil Hunting, strength and force of the human nature? Love to read or learn about unique characters? The presentation and book signing by Melanie Bonner, daughter of Marion Bonner, will have all this and more. The book Old Man of the Fossil Beds will be available for sale at the event.

Join us, fill the seats and let another man’s love for geology ignite your desire to unearth more of yourself in pursuit of your own dreams!

Mark your calendars for October 1, 2026 and come to Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays to meet author Melanie Bonner Thomas, daughter of Marion Bonner, renowned paleontologist. In addition to Sternberg Museum, Bonner's discoveries are on display at Royal Tyrell Museum in Canada, Los Angeles County Museum, Field Museum in Chicago, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, American Museum of Natural History in New York, University of Kansas Natural History Museum, and Keystone Gallery in Scott City, Kansas.

08/25/2026

FHSU Geosciences students had the opportunity to attend 2026 KIOGA Annual Convention. What a way for petroleum interested students to kick off the new school year!

07/16/2026

Geology on the FHSU Campus! We encourage anyone interested in FHSU to visit campus. With our geology on campus, and in the region, we might not be an actual hidden gem but we do resonate with the idiom of the saying. And, we can claim to have a gem's value, beauty, and quality!

06/29/2026

This mineral is a phosphate. It occurs as a rare mineral in amblygonite-rich pegmatite deposits in different parts of the world. It was first described in 1977 from material collected at Bell Pit, Newry, Maine, and has also been reported from South Australia, Nevada, and several locations in Europe.
It is typically found as spherulitic masses of platy crystals rather than well-formed individual crystals. Its color may be colorless, white, light brown, or orange. It has imperfect to fair cleavage and a Mohs hardness of 5.
It was named in honor of an American geologist from West Paris, Maine.

What mineral is this? Leave a comment below to guess what this mineral is.

Photo Link:
By Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10153439

06/24/2026

Ocho Rios is a town located in Saint Ann Parish on Jamaica’s north coast and is commonly called Ochi by locals. Once known as a quiet fishing village, it has expanded rapidly over the years into one of Jamaica’s major tourist destinations. Today, it is known for duty-free shopping, a cruise ship port, popular attractions, beautiful beaches, and well-known resorts.
Besides welcoming cruise ships, Ocho Rios also serves as a cargo port at Reynolds Pier, where materials such as sugar, limestone, and formerly bauxite have been exported. In 2011, the town had an estimated population of 16,671, representing nearly 10 percent of the total population of Saint Ann Parish.
The town is accessible through both Sangster International Airport, located about 97 kilometers west, and Ian Fleming International Airport, about 17 kilometers east. Ocho Rios is also a center for activities like scuba diving and other water sports.
In addition, the town has a connection to film history. It was one of the shooting locations for Dr. No, the first James Bond movie released in 1962. The Sans Souci hotel was featured as the exterior of the Blue Mountain cottage, home of the Bond villain Miss Taro. Ocho Rios later appeared again in another Bond film, Live and Let Die, released in 1973.

Photo Link:
By Balou46 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45629972

06/22/2026

This mineral is a calcium and aluminum inosilicate with the formula Ca2Al(AlSi3O10)(OH)2, although limited Fe3+ may substitute for aluminum in its structure. It crystallizes in the orthorhombic system and most commonly occurs as stalactitic, botryoidal, reniform, or globular aggregates.
Well-formed individual crystals are rare, though when present they may show a square-like cross-section. This mineral is brittle, has an uneven fracture, and displays a vitreous to pearly luster. Its hardness is 6.5 on the Mohs scale, and its specific gravity ranges from 2.80 to 2.95. It is most often light green to yellow, but it can also be colorless, blue, pink, or white. It is generally translucent and only rarely transparent. Rare orange specimens were discovered in April 2000 in the Kalahari Manganese Fields of South Africa. It is used as a gemstone.

What mineral is this? Leave a comment below to guess what this mineral is.

Photo Link:
By Ivar Leidus - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98559338

06/17/2026

The Blue Mountains are the longest mountain range in Jamaica and contain the island’s highest point, Blue Mountain Peak, which rises to 2,256 meters (7,402 feet). From the summit, which can be reached by a hiking trail, visitors can view both the northern and southern coasts of Jamaica. On especially clear days, it is even possible to see the outline of Cuba, located about 210 kilometers (130 miles) away.
This mountain range extends across four parishes: Portland, St. Thomas, St. Mary, and St. Andrew. Because of the area’s varied climate, the Blue Mountains support rich and diverse vegetation, including large forest trees and more than 500 species of flowering plants.
The mountains are also home to remarkable wildlife, including the Homerus swallowtail, which is the second-largest butterfly in the world and the largest in the Americas. During the period when Jamaica’s economy relied heavily on plantation slavery, some enslaved people escaped into the mountains and established independent communities. These people became known as the Jamaican Maroons. Present-day Windward Maroon communities include Charles Town on the Buff Bay River in central Portland, Moore Town in eastern Portland, and Scott’s Hall in St. Mary.
Today, the Blue Mountains are also internationally recognized for producing Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, one of the world’s most famous and expensive coffees. This coffee is grown at elevations between about 0.6 kilometers (0.37 miles) and 1.5 kilometers (0.93 miles) above sea level, while the higher slopes remain protected as forest.

Photo Link:
By Wolmadrian - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4124962

06/15/2026

This mineral is an iron sulfide with the formula Fe(1−x)S, where x ranges from 0 to 0.125. It is an iron-deficient, nonstoichiometric form of FeS, which is known as troilite. Its name comes from the Greek word pyrrhos, meaning flame-colored.
It commonly occurs as tabular or prismatic crystals in hexagonal forms and may also appear massive to granular. Cleavage is absent, while fracture is uneven. Its hardness ranges from 3.5 to 4.5 on the Mohs scale. Aside from serving as a source of sulfur, it has few specific uses. It is generally not considered an important ore mineral unless it contains notable amounts of nickel, copper, or other valuable metals. Iron is rarely extracted from it because the metallurgical process is complicated.

What mineral is this? Leave a comment below to guess what this mineral is.

Photo Link:
By Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10156826

06/10/2026

Rose Hall is a historic Georgian-style plantation house in Jamaica that now operates as a museum. It is situated in Montego Bay, offering a panoramic view of the coastline. Considered one of the most iconic and visually striking great houses in the country, it had fallen into disrepair by the 1960s before being restored. Today, the museum highlights the history of enslaved people who lived on the estate and shares the famous legend of the White Witch of Rose Hall. The mansion features classic Jamaican Georgian architecture, with a stone base and a plastered upper floor, positioned prominently on a hillside overlooking the sea.
The Estate on which Rose Hall sits now also includes a championship golf course, hotel and high-end real estate.

Photo Link:
By Photograph by D Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24947825