With a height of 3,776 meters (12,385 ft), Mount Fuji is the highest mountain across the Japanese archipelago. Its size is the result of volcanic forces that have melded three volcanoes into one: Komitake, Ko-Fuji, and the current Shin-Fuji.

Over the course of the last several hundred thousand years, each volcano has formed out of the remains of the last with Shin-Fuji becoming active roughly 10,000 years ago. But this mountain, for all its geologic enormity, is far more than a work of nature—the mountain is revered across Japan as a site of religious pilgrimage and a calling card of the nation’s culture.

Created and assembled here at Mini Museum, this bracelet contains an igneous bead formed from material released during the 1707 Hōei eruption, the last confirmed eruption of the volcano. The volcanic bead is complimented by golden sheen obsidian and paired on either side by beautiful red lacquer beads streaked with gold paint, representing the beautiful colors of the mountain in fall.

The full bracelet measures 7" in length (~17.5cm) though it will stretch a bit further. As pictured, the size works well for anyone.

Oftentimes the extinction of the dinosaurs is portrayed as a sudden cataclysm, but evidence suggests that the dinosaurs were on the decline long before the asteroid arrived. Recent findings indicate the volcanic Deccan Traps had been spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for millions of years, choking out life on Earth.

One of the largest volcanic features on Earth, the Deccan Traps stretch across the Indian subcontinent, the remnants of these powerful flood basalts reaching depths of more than 1.2 miles (2,000m). The eruption of the Deccan Traps came in relatively fast pulses just before the recognized boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods (c. 66.8 million years ago).

This specimen brings together the two sources of the Dinosaur's extinction: material from the K/Pg boundary behind by the asteroid impact and pieces of the volcanic Deccan Traps. Together, these two forces brought the reign of the dinosaurs to an end.

The Deccan Traps volcanic material is a mixture of the portions of three distinct phases of the main eruption donated by Professor Gerta Keller of Princeton University. We are very grateful for Dr. Keller’s kind donation of this material which underlies a lifetime of work on this fascinating subject.

There have been many mass extinction events in Earth's history, but none parallel the utter desolation caused by the Great Dying. During this time, a chain reaction of catastrophies caused by volcanic activity decimated 95% of life on Earth.

This specimen is a slab of basalt sourced from the Kuznetsk Basin, a remnant of the Great Dying exctinction event. Presented in a glass topped riker case, it is a reminder of a chilling time in our planet's long history.