Minerals
Glenbow Museum's mineral collection offers a colourful glimpse into the depth and diversity found in the mineral world. This is one of the most comprehensive mineral collections in North America and one of the largest in Canada.
Crystals
Only when the right conditions of temperature and pressure are present can minerals grow into flowering structures where crystalline shapes are readily apparent. The collection holds a wide variety of crystal shapes, sizes, and colours, including particularly spectacular quartz and calcite specimens.
Gems
Gemstones are minerals or rocks that have been cut and polished for use in jewellery. Only 70 of the more than 3,800 known minerals are considered gemstones. Glenbow Museum has a wide variety of these, both in cut and uncut forms, including tourmaline, topaz, diamonds, amethyst, citrine, opal and varieties of corundum (sapphires and rubies).
Metals
Glenbow has a fine selection of naturally occurring native elements (minerals containing only one kind of atom) with an emphasis on metallic and semi-metallic elements, but the collection also includes others such as sulphur. Specimens of the quality seen here are rarely found, considering the small amount of gold extracted (half an ounce) per ton mined.
Flourescent Minerals
Many minerals only show their true colours when they are put under ultraviolet (UV) lights. Not all minerals are fluorescent. Often a mineral that cannot be easily identified any other way can be identified by the way it fluoresces.
Other Specimens
The mineral collection has many interesting facets to it. It also includes products made from minerals such as precious and ornamental stone carvings made from malachite, lapis lazuli, carnelian, agate, crocidolite, rhodonite, turquoise, jade, and fluorite.