Cockburn Museum of Geology and Geophysics

A small scientific museum housed within the University of Edinburgh's Grant Institute of Geology and Geophysics, located on the King's Buildings Campus on Mayfield Road in south Edinburgh. The collection, which is used in teaching and research, consists of some 120,000 fossils, minerals and rocks, together with maps, slides and various displays.

The origin of the museum dates back to 1873 when Professor Archibald Geikie (1835 - 1924), who held the first Chair of Geology at Edinburgh, founded "a museum for the teaching of geology". The collection has been continuously extended ever since. It includes Geikie's field notebooks, the first experimental apparatus for simulating melting in rocks built by Sir James Hall of Dunglass (1761 - 1832) and a rock, mineral and fossil collection that belonged to Sir Charles Lyell (1797 - 1875) which was donated by his family in 1927.

The collections have been housed at the Grant Institute since its opening in 1932. The material was catalogued and arranged by Dr. A. M. Cockburn on a voluntary basis and the museum was therefore named in his honour when he died in 1959.

This museum is open to the public by appointment.

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