Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

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Maintenance on this system will make it temporarily unavailable for short periods of time between 8:00 and 10:00 AM EDT this Saturday, 06 June.

 
 
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Catalog#
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Collection Name
Rock/Mineral
Meteorite Name
Volcano Name
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Mineral Sciences Collections Search

If you don't know what you want to see, you may want to try the choices in the Quick Browse section below.

Keyword searches operate on the summary data for each collection record. The Mineralogy, Meteorites, and Petrology & Volcanology By Field searches match values in specific fields. See Help for more details. Searches return a maximum of 5000 records, with the results initially sorted by Meteorite Name (when present) and Catalog Number.

Please note: we have electronic records for more than 90% of our collections, but images for less than 10%. We constantly add new data and correct records. If searches do not return expected data users are welcome to use the Feedback form or contact Department of Mineral Sciences collection managers.

Help

See the Help tab to learn more about searching and then exploring your returned results (sorting, exporting, etc.).

Quick Browse Searches

 
Keyword Search
  
  
  
 
Search Meteorites
 
Search Mineralogy
 
Search Petrology & Volcanology

Use the By Field search to find specimen data that match values in specific database fields. Enter a value or choose one from the dropdown lists.

  • Click the Search button to initiate a search. Clear resets all fields.
  • Some lists are linked, so for example, choosing a Country narrows the choices for Province/State/Territory, and District/County. Dropdown choices also narrow as you type.
  • Check Only Records with Images if you want to restrict the search to records with multimedia content.
  • You can force an exact search by surrounding your search text in double-quotes. Exact means exact, the search is case-sensitive and must match the value of the entire field. An exact search will also take much longer to complete.
  • You will receive a warning when you enter invalid information in the text fields. For example, Catalog Numbers are composed strictly of letters and numbers; other characters raise a warning.
 
Feedback
Please give us your comments on these search pages. Include your email address if you would like to receive a response.
Comments are limited to 1500 characters:
  
  
  
Records/Page to Display:
Search will be unavailable on Tuesday, 17 April, from 10 to 10:30 AM (EDT)

Enter your keywords separated by spaces and click Search. Records that match your search terms will be returned.

Keyword search example: meteorites south africa images

The results of your searches can be displayed in Grid (a sortable, customizable table) or Gallery View (best for reviewing images). Use the Switch button Change View to cycle between these views.

In Grid View:

In Gallery View:

See Exporting Results for information on downloading results to, for example, Excel.

Open the full collection record by clicking the expansion button (Expansion button) in Grid View, or anywhere within the image frame in Gallery View. Inverse expansion buttons (Collapse button) indicate records with multimedia (typically, images).

Sort results in Grid View by clicking the column header (or by choosing Sort from the column's dropdown menu).

Export all or selected results by clicking the Export Results as CSV button in the bottom toolbar in Grid or Gallery View.

Here are a few search tips:

To create a link to specific records at NMNH provide a querystring for:

https://collections.nmnh.si.edu/search/ms/?QUERYSTRING

where QUERYSTRING is (use a plus-sign to separate case-insensitive terms):

It is best to use only letters, numbers, pluses (+), dashes (-), and commas in your querystrings, and to avoid other characters.

Please use the Feedback page to report problems you find with the data, or with using these search pages.