Discovery Room 1: An Ancient Land
For such a small room this first discovery room covers a lot of time – the geologic history of West Virginia. Here, you’ll see the world’s oldest seed – the tropical Elkinsia Polymorpha. And what’s it doing in West Virginia? The land that forms our state was once south of the equator – as it moved north, so did the seed. Try to see if you can count all 580 rings on the Mingo oak! Check out some interesting fossils, including a mastodon jaw and core samples that let you see how soil and natural resources are layered in the earth.
West Virginia’s natural scenic beauty and wealth of resources like coal, natural gas, oil and salt were formed hundreds of millions of years ago. The core samples, fossils and timelines give perspective to the time it took for West Virginia to become what we know today.
Video courtesy of West Virginia Public Broadcasting; Videographer/Editor: Janet Kunicki; Narrator: Beth Vorhees
