- Place
- Vievis, Elektrėnai Municipality
- Region
- Elektrėnai Municipality
- Type
- Lithuanian Geological Survey unit with a mechanised drill-core repository, geological displays and an outdoor boulder park
- Address
- 2 Taikos Street, Vievis
- Coordinates
- 54.77451, 24.81566
- Visit duration
- about 1.5-2 hours for a booked tour, the indoor displays and part of the boulder park; agree the exact length when registering
- Best time
- a pre-booked weekday slot; bright, dry weather makes the 4.2-hectare outdoor boulder display easier to explore
Žemės gelmių informacijos centras, ŽGIC, Lithuanian Geology Museum, Vievis Geology Museum
This is more than a museum and not a walk-in exhibition
The Earth Interior Information Centre is a Lithuanian Geological Survey unit at 2 Taikos Street in Vievis. It presents geological material to visitors, but it also acquires, organises, researches and preserves drill core and the archives of geologists for professional use. That dual role distinguishes it from a conventional municipal museum with a continuously staffed ticket desk.
On 19 July 2026, the official information required advance registration for a guided visit. The centre receives no more than 30 people at once, so the stated office hours do not promise that an unbooked individual will enter every repository and display. Use the registration form to agree a date, starting time, group composition and visit length.
The official map link resolves to 54.7745147, 24.815657 within the site at 2 Taikos Street. This marker identifies the centre, not a separately verified doorway, coach stop or parking space. On arrival, follow local signs and the access instructions provided with the booking.
Drill core is a real archive of Lithuania's subsurface, not decoration
A core is a cylindrical column of rock recovered by core drilling. Its sequence preserves the geological section beneath one location, allowing specialists to revisit composition, age, structure and possible resources without drilling the same site again. Visitors see the mechanised storage system and rows of genuine samples laid in long boxes.
The official 2026 description records core from 1,148 important boreholes drilled since 1953, with a combined length exceeding 140 kilometres. VLE gives the more precise figure of 144.28 kilometres and notes that 386 boreholes reached crystalline basement. These figures convey the repository's scale, not the length of material placed along a visitor route at one time.
The collection includes core from Vydmantai in Kretinga District, Lithuania's deepest borehole at 2,564 metres. It provides a compelling sense of scale: a visitor sees a narrow cylinder, but it represents rock once lying more than two and a half kilometres below the surface.
Fossils, minerals and Lithuanian resources extend the repository story
The indoor displays are not one undifferentiated cabinet of stones. Polished boulder sections introduce their minerals and formation in the Earth's crust, while the Lithuanian mineral-resources display presents the country's principal subsurface materials and processes close to the surface. Juozas Lisauskas's collection focuses on rarer minerals.
Alfonsas Žukelis's palaeontological display arranges 195 fossils in stratigraphic order. Specimens from different geological systems and locations in what are now Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan trace the development of life from the Palaeozoic to the Cenozoic. It is a collection-based overview of evolution, not a claim that every fossil was found in Lithuania.
The memorial display for Professor Juozas Dalinkevičius links geology with the history of Lithuanian science. It includes personal effects, photographs, maps, geological sections, Lithuanian rock specimens and fossils, notably Jurassic and Cretaceous ammonites and belemnites. The centre also preserves other geologists' papers, tools and personal archives, but preservation does not mean every document remains on permanent display.
The 4.2-hectare boulder park is an outdoor collection arranged by rock type
More than 550 boulders brought from locations around Lithuania are distributed around the centre, some reaching 5-6 cubic metres. Their placement is systematic rather than random: the rocks form 35 groups based on chemical composition and petrographic classification. Visitors can therefore compare granite, gneiss and other rock types at a scale that a display case cannot provide.
The park covers 4.2 hectares and contains two ponds together with native trees and shrubs. Genė Prakapaitė, a landscape architect from Kaunas Botanical Garden, designed the setting. Planting and paths turn the collection into a walk, while its scientific classification remains more important than the impression of a decorative rock garden.
These boulders record continental glaciation and were transported from Fennoscandia and the Baltic region. Authoritative sources give somewhat different date ranges for that movement, so it is safer here to connect them with the last glacial period and let the guide explain the dating used on the current tour.
A core store became a museum, then the museum became a Survey centre
Museum displays began in the core store built in 1980. It remained part of the Institute of Geology until 1989. In 1992, the repository was combined with an exhibition in Vilnius to create the Geology Museum, and in 2000 the Vievis facility became the independent Lithuanian Geology Museum.
The government decided in 2014 to reorganise the museum and attach it to the Lithuanian Geological Survey. Earth Interior Information Centre became the official name on 1 January 2015. Searches for Vievis Geology Museum therefore lead to the same place and its earlier institutional form, not to another museum elsewhere in the town.
A reconstruction project carried out in 2016-2020, costing more than €2.29 million, renewed the building, grounds and exhibitions. It was intended to improve both public understanding and the conditions in which specialists study and preserve cores. The present combination of education and a functioning national geological archive is the result of that development.
Opening, admission and accessibility must be confirmed with the booking
On 19 July 2026, published hours were Monday to Thursday from 08:00 to 17:00 and Friday from 08:00 to 15:45, with a lunch break from 12:00 to 12:45. The Survey closes on public holidays and finishes one hour earlier before them. Advance tour registration was still required, so do not travel on the basis of office hours alone.
The price published that day was €8 for an adult and €4 for a school pupil, student or pensioner. Children aged six and under and teachers accompanying school groups entered free. Charges and concessions can change, so confirm the total, payment method and included parts of the tour through the official registration process.
No detailed public accessibility audit was found for the entire building and 4.2-hectare park. Renovation photographs show improved paths, but they do not prove step-free entry into the mechanised store or every outdoor group. State mobility, visual, hearing or sensory requirements when booking and ask staff to suggest a suitable route.
