The Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals in Hillsboro, Oregon, houses a world-class collection recognized as the finest in the Pacific Northwest and one of the finest in the United States. Richard and Helen Rice constructed the building that would become the museum as their family home in 1952. The Museum building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places for its unique architectural style, natural stonework, and the extraordinary native Oregon woodwork found throughout the building.
In 2005, the museum opened what had originally been Richard Rice’s workshop as the Rudy Tschernich Northwest Mineral Gallery. This gallery focuses primarily on the mineral heritage of the Pacific Northwest.
Shown below are some Heulandite specimens from Idaho. Heulandite is the name given to a series of tecto-silicate minerals of the zeolite group. Zeolite minerals boil in blowpipe heat and the name, zeolite, is from the Swedish zeolit meaning “boiling stone.”
Heulandite, by the way, is named for the nineteenth-century mineral collector Henry Heuland.
More Minerals
Northwest Mineral Gallery: Stilbite (Photo Diary)
Northwest Mineral Gallery: Plume and Moss Agate (Photo Diary)
Northwest Mineral Gallery: Some Idaho Minerals (Photo Diary)
Northwest Mineral Gallery: Some Montana Minerals (Photo Diary)
Northwest Mineral Gallery: Some Minerals from India (Photo Diary)
Northwest Mineral Gallery: Washington Quartz (Photo Diary)
Northwest Mineral Gallery: Pacific Northwest Quartz (Photo Diary)
Northwest Mineral Gallery: Some Washington Minerals (Photo Diary)