Resize Text: SMMP AT TUCSON
The Society of Mineral Museum Professionals (SMMP) will hold its next board and general membership meetings in conjunction with the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show in February. The group will also put together a special display for the show.
Caption: One of the immense quartz specimens at the Natural History Museum Bern.
SUPER-SIZED CRYSTALS
In May 2011 the Natural History Museum Bern opened a new permanent exhibit featuring one of the largest quartz-crystal finds in the Swiss Alps, comprising fifty crystals with a total weight of 2 tons. They were discovered in late 2005 by two collectors in a large fissure in the central Aar massif at Planggenstock, close to Gotthard Pass. The slightly smoky quartz specimens are distinguished by their exceptional transparency, high luster, and large size, with some single crystals reaching 107 cm in length, and the largest and most aesthetic group weighing 300 kilograms. In addition to the nearly fifty quartz specimens, a number of pink fluorite octahedra are also on display. Specimens are exhibited in a darkened room, with essentially all light shining from the crystals. Accompanying the exhibition is an impressive movie about their recovery. Also on display is a suite of other minerals found in the same fissure, ranging from chlorite and galena to secondary wulfenite. The Planggenstock crystals are integrated into the already existing exhibition of Swiss minerals and continue the museum's tradition of documenting the most important mineral finds from the alpine fissures in Switzerland, with the earliest specimens being on display since 1721.
Caption: Reception for the unveiling of the GIA birthstone exhibit.
Caption: Birthstone exhibit at the San Diego International Airport.
BIRTHSTONE EXHIBIT
In September the Airport Authority joined the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) in opening the GIA Celebrates Birthstones exhibit at San Diego International Airport. The temporary exhibit contains more than 250 gems, minerals, and pieces of jewelry from around the world and will continue there through 2 February in Terminal Two. Featured are lavish displays showcasing birthstones for each month, as well as a 22,000-carat faceted quartz and a replica of the jeweled Victoria's Secret bra.
COLOR SPONSORS for the Museum Notes column for 2012 are John and Maryanne Fender of Fender Natural Resources, Richardson, Texas.
Caption: Eloise Gaillou, now at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
CURATOR NAMED
Dr. Eloise Gaillou has joined the staff of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County as associate curator of mineral sciences. She received her master's degree in petrology from the University of Blaise Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand, France, in 2003. In 2006 she completed her PhD in material sciences at the University of Nantes, France, and in parallel, obtained an advanced gemology diploma. She then came to the States to work as a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution to continue her work on opals and diamonds. Gaillou also obtained a postdoctoral appointment at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., which she left early to take the position in Los Angeles.
Caption: A portion of the newly remodeled Limper Museum, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
MUSEUM DO-OVER
Museum Director Dr. Kendall L. Hauer recently completed remodeling the main part of the systematic mineral display in the Karl E. Limper Geology Museum, at the Miami University in Oxford Ohio. The new display contains a good deal of contextual information that is intended to provide basic information regarding minerals in general. Also new are displays featuring biomineralization and environmental mineralogy. Additionally, there are two sets of minerals on loan from Harvard University. One contains specimens of stibnite and Japan-law twinned quartz from Japan; the other features apatite specimens from the United States.
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