The geological collections are of more than local importance and consist of more than 9,000 mineralogical specimens and several hundred thousand fossils.
Approximately one twentieth of the collection is displayed and the remainder in storage but available for study by interested persons.
Much of the collecting was done in the second half of the 19th century and among the collections are the David Homfray collection from the Cambrian and Ordovician strata of Wales and the collections of George H. Hickling and D. M. S. Watson from the Silurian of the Dudley district, West Midlands and from the Old Red Sandstone.
Other specimens include the fossilised plants of the Coal Measures, the S. S. Buckman collection of ammonites, an ichthyosaur from Whitby and 40,000 mammalian bones from an excavation at Creswell Crags, Derbyshire and the David Forbes World Collection of minerals.
Since the 1920s there has been a policy of complementary collecting by the museum and the university Department of Geology by which the museum specialises in hard rock petrology.

The museum's collection of zeolite group minerals originated from a donation by Caroline Birley in 1894.
The geological collections are of more than local importance and consist of more than 9,000 mineralogical specimens and several hundred thousand fossils. Approximately one twentieth of the collection is displayed and the remainder in storage but available for study by interested persons. Much of the collecting was done in the second half of the 19th century and among the collections are the David Homfray collection from the Cambrian and Ordovician strata of Wales and the collections of George H. Hickling and D. M. S. Watson from the Silurian of the Dudley district, West Midlands and from the Old Red Sandstone. Other specimens include the fossilised plants of the Coal Measures, the S. S. Buckman collection of ammonites, an ichthyosaur from Whitby and 40,000 mammalian bones from an excavation at Creswell Crags, Derbyshire and the David Forbes World Collection of minerals. Since the 1920s there has been a policy of complementary collecting by the museum and the university Department of Geology by which the museum specialises in hard rock petrology.
The museum's collection of zeolite group minerals originated from a donation by Caroline Birley in 1894.
Manchester Museum