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Highlights of Orton Hall for self-guided tours

ORTON HALL TOUR

 

  • Building imagined, lobbied for by John Strong Newberry, Second State Geologist (1869-1882).
  • Designed by Packard & Yost, architects.
  • Construction approved by Ohio Legislature, 1891.
  • Constructed 1892-1892; opened to the public in 1893.
  • The Geological Museum moved into the building (from University Hall) in 1893.
  • Orton Hall was the first museum building constructed in the State of Ohio.
  • The building originally housed the Geological Museum, the University Library, offices and labs.
  • Named for Edward Orton, first President of The Ohio State University, its first faculty member (Geology), and founder of the first academic department (Geology).
  • In 1893, the building became the home of the Geological Survey of Ohio and it remained so until 1962.
  • Named to the National Register of Historic Places, 1970 (justification: Ohio’s first museum building).

 

Outside of the building, north side, facing the Oval

  • Originally constructed exclusively of Ohio building stones. On the outer shell, they are arranged in stratigraphic order (best observed in the bell tower)– Middle Silurian to Carboniferous. The bell tower reflects the Paleozoic bedrock stratigraphy of Ohio. The Mesozoic and Cenozoic is represented by grotesques of animals known to science by the 1890s. Bas-reliefs adorning the windows frames on the north side depict Ohio’s First Peoples (Quaternary).
  • In front of the building we are developing an outdoor exhibit – a walk through geological time.
    • It begins with the giant Archean erratic (anorthosite), extends through the Proterozoic, Cambrian-Silurian on the NW side of the steps, and continues with the Devonian-Mesozoic-Cenozoic on the NE side of the steps. The Quaternary is represented by Pleistocene glacial erratics and glacially striated slabs of Columbus Limestone. Finally, the Holocene is represented by the large core of Carboniferous sandstone from eastern Ohio (with plant fossils) in the space between Orton Hall and Mendenhall Laboratory.
    • This exhibition is being prepared with the help of Landscape Architecture and students in the Natural History Museum Curation Certificate Program.

 

Atrium of Orton Hall

  • Wainscoting inside the atrium is Columbus Limestone, quarried from the State Quarry (formerly called Sullivant Quarry), along the Scioto River in Columbus. Some blocks show oil staining. Edward Orton was a central academic figure in the early development of the oil industry. From 1861 to 1901, Ohio was the leading oil producer in the world. That production was largely from the Columbus Limestone (Devonian, ~395 million years old) and from the underlying Silurian.
  • Columns in the atrium are constructed of Ohio building stones. Numbers are keyed to the chart in the NE corner. Note the beautiful stone carvings.
  • Dinosaur skeleton – reconstruction (cast) of Crylophosaurus ellioti, from the Hanson Formation (Jurassic, ~170 million years old), Mt. Kirkpatrick, Central Transantarctic Mountains. Discovered by and named for Prof. David Elliot (Ohio State). First dinosaur described from Antarctica.
    • A cast of the skull and bones of the anterior axial skeleton in matrix is in the case at the SE corner of the atrium.
  • Plaque near front staircase: celebrates the founding of Ceramic Engineering at Ohio State by Edward Orton Jr. The first classes were taught in Orton Hall in 1894.

 

Orton Memorial Library of Geology

  • Geology Library was opened in 1925.
  • The core of the library’s holdings were donated by Edward Orton Jr. as a memorial to his father.
  • Paintings:
    • Early State Geologists (including William Mather #1, John Strong Newberry #2, Edward Orton #3, Edward Orton #4, John Adams Bownocker #5).
    • Early Chairs of the Department of Geology.
    • Sites of geologic interest in North America and around the world. Highlights: one Moran, two Bjerstedt, and one Volaire paintings.
    • Marble sculpture is of Edward Orton.
  • Some Orton Geological Museum exhibits are in the Library, including a Jurassic ichthyosaur (~170 million years old), probably collected by Mary Anning, c. 1830s–early 1840s, from Lyme Regis, England.

 

Orton Geological Museum gallery 

  • Displays mostly include rocks and fossils from Ohio, plus minerals and meteorites.
  • Highlights:
    • Skeleton of Jefferson’s ground sloth was the first relatively complete skeleton of this animal discovered (1890). It is from Holmes County, Ohio.
      • Megalonyx (meaning “giant claw”) was the first genus of fossil named from the United States (1799); named by Thomas Jefferson, America’s first paleontologist.
      • Skeleton was installed in the Orton Geological Museum in 1896.
      • This skeleton has cut marks on the femurs, inferred to be evidence of butchering by Pleistocene humans, ~13,100 years ago.
    • One of the largest known complete fossils of Isotelus, the State Invertebrate Fossil of Ohio (Ordovician, ~445 million years old).
    • Reconstructed skull and anterior thoracic plates (cast) of Dunkleosteus, the State Fossil Fish of Ohio (Devonian, ~370 million years old).
    • Cast of the skull of Tyrannosaurus rex, from the Cretaceous (~66 million years old) of Montana. The original is American Museum of Natural History 5027, which was used as the iconic logo for the Jurassic Park series of movies.
    • Alllende Meteorite- the oldest rock known from the Solar System (dated at 4.567 billion years old).
    • Murchison Meteorite- oldest rock known from the Universe (dated as 10 billion years old).
    • One of our most popular exhibits shows some of the minerals used in making cell phones and other modern electronic devices.
    • Another exhibit highlights the ongoing crisis with coral reefs. This exhibit was developed as part of an undergraduate thesis research project by Tony Caputo, one of our recent BS graduates.

 

  • Basement corridor
    • Reconstructed jaws of megalodon, the giant shark (Pliocene, ~ 4 million years old). Teeth were collected underwater offshore of Venice, Florida, by one of our alumni, Steve Thacker, who donated the reconstruction crafted by Vito Bartucci (the “Megalodon Man”).
    • Slab of reconstructed trilobites from the Cambrian (~521 million years old) of Morocco. These are among the earliest-known multicellular animals known from the Paleozoic Era.