There’s a basement under that and Natural History. When you walk into the big Museum there is a full skeleton Triceratops in the foyer and it’s pretty dang impressive. Fossilization is actually an extremely rare occurrence over time. Items that undergo fossilization need to end up in a low energy environment AND it needs to not be subsequently eroded over geologic timescales. The fossil record is heavily biased against upland creatures.
That basement has an area with RACKS of triceratops skulls. It gives you a closer appreciation for these creatures roaming the continental shield in number like the buffalo used to.
There was a skull down there that was at least 1/3 the size of the entire animal on display in the entryway!
In one area there was a diamond wire saw, and the saw wire was adjustable out to at least 6 or 8 feet. They would use this to section skulls for study of the interiors. When I observed it, it was working on a 2–3-ton nickel iron meteorite, carving ~3/4 or 1 inch plates off it for subsequent polishing and acid etching out the Widmanstätten pattern. This is a macroscopic crystallization pattern unique to the cooling of the metal in the early solar system. The guy leading us around related that it took the saw about a week to carve off one plate (and the thing wasn’t very big, maybe the volume of a standard metal garbage can.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widmanst%C3%A4tten_pattern
Wow you have seen some things. I grew up in Chicago and they have some fine museums like the Field museum. Haven’t been down there in years.
That is fascinating about the skulls. We have been rockhounds going way back. We have a few geodes that we never cracked open, and our 10 acres sits atop rocks rocks rocks, and big boulders. Many kinds and colors. The glacier that descended down into Michigan stopped just yards from the Grand River and our place in 1/2 a mile up. We even made a trip to Arkansas in 1990 and dug quartz crystals. Have some huge pieces. A few big ones with what looks like pyrite mixed in.