For the general public, the museum is better known as the Central Siberian Geological Museum. Under this name, he was registered in the State Register of Museums of the USSR in 1978. The official date of the creation of the museum, as a scientific unit of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, is July 23, 1958.
Heads of the museum at different times were: Ph.D. Nadezhda Chrysanfovna Belous (1957-1962), Ph.D. Alexander Mikhailovich Dymkin (1962-1975), Ph.D. Vladimir Ivanovich Sinyakov (1975-1988), Ph.D. Mikhail Petrovich Mazurov (1988-1992), Ph.D. Nikolai Mikheevich Podgorny (1992-2018). Currently, the museum is headed by Ph.D. Andrei Vladislavovich Vishnevsky.
The idea of ​​creating a geological museum in the territory of Novosibirsk belongs to Professor Gennady Lvovich Pospelov, researcher of Siberian deposits, a member of the Mining and Geological Institute of the West Siberian Branch. In the late 1940s, a collection of Siberian ores began to be created. Here, in the building of this institute on the street. Michurin, 23, and was first located the museum, where the first exhibitions were created and excursions were organized for students of local schools. After building a building in the Academgorodok in 1961, the museum received new areas, where it is located now.
The first exhibits of the museum formed the basis of a collection of minerals, which now has about 10 000 samples from 150 deposits of Siberia and the Far East. Exposure to the composition of ores and other mineral raw materials of the most interesting deposits is located in shop windows and is accompanied by explanatory schemes of the deposit construction. The electrified map "Minerals of Siberia and the Far East" gives an idea of ​​the geographic location of the deposits of ore and non-metallic raw materials of this vast territory. In the exposition you can see unique samples of myihukitovoy copper ore weighing 400 kg from the field of Talnakh, samples of polymetallic ores of the Tetyukh deposit, Kholodninsky and Gorevskoye deposits, unique aluminum ores - Sonnyryty from Buryatia, Siberian bauxite from the Tunguska river.
The creation of the mineralogical collection began in 1959 with the transfer of the museum of a small private collection of minerals of Eastern Siberia to the geologist VS Voropinov and from the collection, sent by the Mineralogical Museum them. A.E. Fersman of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (Moscow). The collection was then replenished with mineralogical samples purchased at exhibitions in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) and Moscow. To date, most of the collection consists of samples collected by the staff of the institute and the museum and other geological organizations during expeditionary work. At present, the mineralogical collection is represented by samples from 60 countries of the world and all regions of Russia and includes more than 1200 mineral species. The exposition uses the crystallochemical systematics of Professor Alexander Alexandrovich Godovikov. The total number of exhibits in the collection is about 8,000. Among them are unique specimens - druzhu dunburite weighing 200 kg, dusts of mountain crystal weighing 100 - 350 kg, native iron from traps of Siberia, copper nougat weighing 750 kg from the deposit of Taimet, crystals of rare minerals, magnificent shrubs beryl, tourmaline, topaz crystals, a collection of colored quartz varieties and many other exhibits representing unique natural secrets of both rare and widespread minerals.
Interesting mineralogical samples were repeatedly transmitted to the museum of dg.my.n. L.Sh. Bazarov, Ph.D. І.Т. Bakumenko, Ph.D. GV Bukin, Ph.D. YOU. Vasiliev, academician N.L. Dobretsovym, Ph.D. Yu.A. Dolgovym, dg.my.n. V.E. Zagorsky, collectors SV Kolisnychenko and NM Murashko, geologist Litvinov, Corr. RAS IV Pekov, geologist VM Petrov, Ph.D. SZ Smirnov, Academicians VS and N.V. Sobolevye, Ph.D. VV Sharygin
In the mineralogical collection of the museum there are about 20 new minerals discovered by geologists of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and named after the famous geologists: Lavrentyevit, Usovit, Kuznetsovit, Shahovit, Kuzminit, Kuliginit, Sharyginit and others.
The museum collections contain thematic collections of d.G.M.N. IA Belitsky, Ph.D. AA Godovikova, K.A. Lazebnik, Ph.D. MP Mazurov, Ph.D. G.L. Pospelova, Academician VV Reverdatto, MI Savinykh, Corr. AN USSR FN Shakhov and others.
The collection of the museum holds and exhibits 47 meteorites. Two meteorites were found in Novosibirsk Region and named Novosibirsk and Maslianino. The collection of meteorites was replenished by the efforts of the staff of the Institute of Cultural Studies. GI Ivanova, Ph.D. N.M. Podgornyh, Ph.D. VV Sharygin Exhibited in the museum and a unique collection of impact glasses - tektits