Tim Rose is a rockhound who analyzes everything from flea fossils to asteroid pieces

In the fall of 2023, a space capsule landed in the Utah desert carrying something special: samples from an asteroid called Bennu. NASA sent a probe to the asteroid, in the first U.S. mission of its kind, to collect pieces of the rocky body and bring them back in hopes of learning more about the origin of life on Earth. Some samples stayed at NASA, while others were sent to laboratories around the world, including the Department of Mineral Sciences at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. That is where geologist Tim Rose first laid his eyes on the celestial rock, eager to dig in as the manager of the department’s analytical laboratories. 

“We're studying grains smaller than a head of a pin. We’re trying to characterize this big asteroid from tiny pinhead grains and so far, it’s kind of worked out,” Rose explains. “We discovered some minerals that were unexpected. Some of these findings have already been published, but there are more exciting findings on the way.”
 
Bennu is just one of dozens of samples that flow through Mineral Sciences’ labs every year, the museum’s core facility for analyzing the chemical composition of objects and specimens under investigation. “We look at a wide variety of objects, not just rocks and meteorites. In addition to Bennu, we recently studied a group of diamonds including the DeYoung Pink Diamond we have on exhibit,” Rose said.   

Besides managing a lab, Rose also considers himself a materials scientist, as his lab studies a wide range of object types, including anthropology artifacts. “We can put whole artifacts under a microscope and analyze them [without damaging them],” Rose said. “These include fossils; recently, flea fossils that are an inch long and that are from the time of the dinosaurs.” Unfortunately, the flea fossils did not bear any traces of what they were looking for: remnants of the dinosaur blood the fleas may have been eating. 
 
Rose is a scientist supporting other scientists—much of his work, such as his study of the DeYoung Pink Diamond and flea fossils, is analyzing samples other investigators bring in to guide their research and fill in the missing pieces. “It’s fun discovering what things are made of. It gives scientists food for their theories. It helps them see if they’re on the right track, or if they need to switch tracks,” Rose said. 

In some ways, Rose was meant to fill the role he is in now: a source of new knowledge for the hundreds of scientists at one of the largest natural history museums in the world. “I’ve been a rockhound since I was a little kid, collecting rocks and fossils. My mother pronounced I was going to be a museum man at age eight,” he said. Rose grew up near Washington, D.C., and after college at the University of Delaware he worked in an oil field for a year before he found his first job at the Smithsonian through an “odd jobs” register. He began his Smithsonian career at the National Museum of Natural History’s fledgling IT department, which at the time was simply called “Automatic Data-Processing.” No one had any personal computers yet. 

“We had terminals that were hardwired to a mainframe all the way across the National Mall. It allowed us to do real-time inventorying of the collection,” Rose said. Once done with that project, he found another job in the museum as sample preparator. Looking to advance beyond sample preparation, Rose completed a master’s degree at the University of Maryland. “Six years, two children, and three advisors later,” he finally got it done. While working on his master’s, Rose used analytical equipment in the Mineral Sciences department, and from there, his job morphed from sample preparation to analytics. 
 
These days, Rose does not collect fine specimens at home but does collect yard rocks if he sees anything unusual. When thinking back on his childhood vacations to the Black Hills of South Dakota, Rose reminisces about the pegmatite mines, where he saw giant crystals, some 10 feet long or more.  

“Sometimes, when you’re walking through a pegmatite mine, you feel like you're inside a rock because of the giant crystals surrounding you,” he said. “Pegmatite is also a complex mineral. It often contains lithium and boron, which are two of the rarest elements on the planet, but in pegmatites, these elements are concentrated.” 

Walking through those mines, Rose saw rock exposed for the first time in eons, a sight to behold and that childhood awe is still there for Rose. If you are looking to experience a sense of awe, start your virtual tour of the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gem, and Minerals right now on the National Museum of Natural History’s website.