Mina El Edén Rock and Mineral Museum

The El Edén Mine is a cultural complex located within an old silver mine. It has an underground train, a thematic exhibit about the history of mining, a nightclub that only opens on weekends, and an amazing rock museum.

The specimens within the Museum of Fossils, Rocks, and Minerals were donated by Juan Manuel Navarro. His collection is so large, it wasn’t possible to fit all the rocks in the mine’s existing tunnels, so miners used dynamite to blast new tunnels.

None of the pieces require special care, since they are in their natural environment deep within the Earth. The beauty of the stones is unimaginable. The quartz is lovely, but its brightness does not compete with the huge desert stone or the tiny crocoite from Tasmania.

In the depths of the museum, there is a showcase lit by blacklight that contains an array of fluorescent stones. Perhaps the one that attracts the most attention is the “kryptonite,” the fictitious mineral that’s Superman’s main weakness. The specimen exhibited in the museum is a prop from the film and is made with Uranium.

There are also two showcases that exhibit silver and gold in their natural states. The specimens on display are from the same Zacatecas mines, but there are also gold specimens from Canada and Brazil. There’s also a room full of fossils, where you can admire megalodon teeth, starfish, manta rays, and orthoceras from Morocco; fossilized wood from Madagascar; trilobites from Bolivia; and several animals from Wyoming.

At the center of the museum is a sculpture of Don Roque, a miner who according to legend was buried in a landslide inside “El Edén” for his greed.