Photos: Inside the Alaska Geologic Materials Center

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The Geologic Materials Center in Eagle River stores geologic samples from across the state, making them available for analysis with modern techniques. June 7, 2013

Tucked away inside a little-known state repository are 66 weathered Conex boxes holding miles of core samples, which taken together chart the history of natural resource development in Alaska over the past 100 years.

From samples of the Swanson River oil field, one of the state's earliest, to rocks from Amchitka Island, the site of underground nuclear tests in the late 1960s, the Alaska Geologic Materials Center in Eagle River is like a museum of development successes and failures in Alaska.

And because natural resource development has long fueled Alaska's economy, it's no surprise the center is running out of space.

Read more: Geologic Materials Center is Alaska's hardest-rocking library