Nationalmuseum Gripsholm Castle opens for the season

Once a year, the Utah Museum of Natural History opens up the collections in its home on Presidents Circle, the George Thomas Building, to create access to a larger portion of the state’s 1.2 million-object collection.

The final “What’s in the Basement?” event ever in the Museum’s current home is set for this Saturday, October 9, from 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. Regular admission applies.

The mount making shop will be open to the public for the first time ever during “What’s in the Basement?,” and it will have portions of the buildings new exhibits on display. In the mount making shop, visitors will be able to see the “Utah Minerals” exhibit mounted on the wall. It features eye-fetching minerals like pyrite from Park City, variscite from Fairfield, malachite from Washington County and Flourite from Piute County – to name just a few of the 50 Utah minerals set to be mounted. There will also be a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil from the North Horn Mountains and ceratopsian fossils from Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument mounted and on display in the shop.

A new lobby exhibit, The Rio Tinto Center: The Excitement is Building, highlighting the new building’s reflection of the Museum’s mission, Utah’s unique natural and cultural landscapes, and the specific character of our site. Set to debut on Saturday, the exhibit will show how the copper was mined from the Bingham Canyon Mine, refined, and hung on the new building. It will demonstrate how board-form concrete is molded, and it will have an interactive component showing how pervious pavement works.

In keeping with the “Year of the Dinosaur” celebration at the Museum, “What’s in the Basement?” will highlight all of the Museum’s dinosaur discoveries from the past year. Fossils of Tawa hallae, Seitaad ruessi, Utahceratops gettyi, Kosmoceratops Richardsoi, and a cast skull of Coahuilaceratops magnacuerna will all be out for the public to see. Additionally, visitors will be able to tour the paleontology collections area where thousands of dinosaur fossils are housed.

Utah Museum of Natural History 1390 E. Presidents Circle, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112 801.581.6927

umnh.utah.edu

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