Small traditional cache, log-and-a-few-gift-items-only, bring your own pen.
There is free, unlimited parking on California Blvd. but not often available during business hours. The circular driveway has 15 minute no-questions-asked loading zone; that should suffice for a park-and-grab.
A Socratic dialogue between the Geology master and his student:
Master: "Do you see how all the rocks in this area are smooth, rounded cobbles?"
Student: "Yes, yes, I see that. What does it mean?"
Master: "Are you sure ALL the rocks are smooth, rounded cobbles?"
Student: "Yes, yes, they are!"
--- continued in the hint ...
The Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences began as the Department of Geology at Caltech in 1926. It includes the Seismological Laboratory, housed since 1974 in the South Mudd building west of GZ. This is where Charles Richter, a Caltech physics graduate, developed in the 1920's and 30's a formula for comparing the magnitudes of Southern California earthquakes. This is also where you see press conferences anytime there is an earthquake. Also in the early days, Paleontologist Chester Stock was chief science curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Many of the fossils he collected are now at the Page Museum.
The Charles Dayton Arms Laboratories of Geological Sciences (northeast of GZ; note the geological symbols in the stonecarving) and the Robinson Laboratory of Astrophysics (north of GZ; note the astronomical symbols in the stonecarving) were both built in 1938. Robinson is now the Linde-Robinson Lab for Environmental Science, since the astronomers moved to the Cahill Center, that cracked-up orange thing across the street.
Beginning in the 1950's and 1960's, the Division grew to include programs of study and research in geochemistry and planetary science, taking advantage of the new U.S. space program of unmanned exploration and the proximity of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Geochemist Clair Patterson determined the age of the earth as 4.55 billion years; he also studied the build-up of lead in the environment and in the human body, and his work in this area, which continued into the 1980's, contributed to the removal of lead from gasoline, food containers, and paint. Geologist Leon Silver, a specialist in earth's very oldest rocks, was a natural for training Apollo astronauts what to look for scientifically on the moon. More recently, planetary astronomer Mike Brown played a leading role in the discovery of dwarf planets, including a body larger than Pluto.