Within the confines of a Ladakhi folk house on the forboding mountain slope of the Murtsey colony outside Leh lie the formidable outdoors, neatly arranged in bits and pieces. Nearly 200 rocks and minerals have been studied and preserved inside a little one-room place called Ladakh Rocks and Minerals Preservation Study and Museum. Considering the geological history that it safeguards, it is unfortunate that it is still little known. In the exoticism surrounding the Pangong Tso lake, Ladakh’s most celebrated attraction, museums such as these are drowning in the absence of patronage.
In the dimly-lit interiors are rocks and minerals varying in size, lustre, colour, crystal formations, streaks, cleavage, fractures, tenacity, hardness, gravity and others. Each section is neatly labelled with the occasional spelling mistake.
The five tectonic belts—Karakoram, Shayok, Ladakh granite belt, the India belt and the Suru crystalline belt—contribute to the plethora of rocks and minerals formations in Ladakh. From indigenous calcite in the Shang Sumdo region to sulphur from the Puga Valley, all are housed here.
The museum documents the evolution of formations from billions of years ago and showcases the earth’s rustic diversity. There’s also a large rock resembling an alien, a naturally formed lingam (Shiva’s phallic), a fossilised dinosaur egg, volcanic bombs and the lightning rock, including rocks and minerals such as turquoise, coral, water copper negate, meteorite, ruby, emerald, agate, moldovite, pyroxenite, bitumen, epidote and corundum.
The museum’s founder Phunchok Angchok runs the museum as a trust because of the lack of financial wherewithal. But that hasn’t kept him from dreaming big. He befriends everyone with a cup of steaming butter tea. “I want this museum to become a study centre for students, researchers, scientists, scholars and mineralogists. If the government aids my ideas, my intention is to arrange geological tour programmes for everybody interested,” says Angchok.
He also wants to set up an industry for cutting and polishing of gems and precious and semi-precious stones for jewellery making. “We can make local Ladakhi gift items, generating employment in the district. The museum can also be a centre for traditional mineral-based medicines,” he says.