Petrography collections of the University began to take shape in the 1870s on the initiative and with an active participation of the first professor of the University Aleksandr Inostrantsev.
The Petrography Museum of St Petersburg University stores collections of rock sections of Nikolay Przhevalsky’s friends, colleagues and students: Grigory Potanin, Mikhail Pevtsov, Innokentii Lopatin and others. Many academicians contributed to the collection of the Museum:
- Franz Loewinson-Lessing and Aleksandr Polkanov
- Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences, Nikolai Eliseev
- Professors Vladimir Timofeev, Galina Saranchina, Nikolai Shinkarev, Nikolai Kotov, Sergei Grigorev
- Associate Professor Valerii Ivannikov
Topics of excursions:
- Collections of Petrography Museum
- Main types of magmatic and metamorphic rocks
- Intrusive rocks and mineral resources
- Modern volcanism and palaeovolcanism in the Museum collections
- Crust and mantle of the Earth in the Museum collection
- Geodynamic situation of forming complexes of rocks
- Stone aliens from Space are changing the Earth (meteorites and impactites)
- Rocks as a material for facing and decoration.