Well this is pretty interesting. I was scrolling through my Facebook feed when I came across this post that blew my mind. What is in all those boxes! It's an entire warehouse full of them. It looks like the ending of Indiana Jone's Raiders of the Lost Ark.

No, it's not a bunch of secret treasures, but it is a treasure of information.

Hibbing Minnesota Drill Core Library

The Minnesota Department Of Natural Resources shared photos of some of the scientific work they do. These are from the Minnesota DNR's Hibbing Drill Core Library. They store 12,000 mineral exploration cores, 1500 roadway and bridge foundation cores, and 500 other miscellaneous cores.

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If you put them end to end, it would add up to more than 3 million linear feet of core samples. How far is that?

MN DNR
MN DNR
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They archive the core samples for scientific research. They actually have people come from all over the world to study them and develop new ideas about Minnesota's mineral resources and geology.

Minnesota DNR
Minnesota DNR
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The reason they archive and hold on to the cores is so that they can reuse them to study areas without having to drill again. It's not cheap to drill, they say it can cost 100,000 to get a new core from 1,000 feet. They actually reused core samples for the advancement of finding copper-nickel, gold, titanium, and iron deposits.

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Core Library Is Temporarily Closed

Normally you can set an appointment to visit the core library in Hibbing. However, there are currently some safety concerns that they are evaluating at the library. It's temporarily closed. However, they can still get samples to those who need them.

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