Bascom also collected and donated the earliest specimens in our collection
In 1903, Theodore Rand donated >10,000 specimens
In 1958, the family of George Vaux Jr. donated more than 10,000 of his specimens
From 1958-1979, curator Harold Arndt expanded the collection with several thousand new specimens
From 1980-2010, curator Juliet Reed continued expanding the collection
Large collections of local specimens have also also donated by local collectors, including Allen Heyl, Edwin Roedder, Arthur Hopkins, Herbert Albrecht, and James Quickel.
The Collection Today: Stats & Figures
The collection today holds more than 44,000 mineral specimens,…
…10s of thousands of rocks ….
… thousands of thin sections ….
… thousands of micromounts ….
… several hundred meteorites and impact-related materials ….
… and hundreds of fluorescent specimens.
The mineral collection alone represents more than 90 countries, all 50 U.S. states, and more than 1,000 individual mineral species.
The Collection features minerals from classic localities….
Native Gold from the Sierra Nevadas of California
Native Silver from the Spanish colonial mines of Mexico
Diamonds from the Kimberley Mines of South Africa
Opal from Australia
Turquoise from the American Southwest
Calcites from the Joplin mines of Missouri
Malachites and Azurites from the Bisbee Mines of Arizona
Stibnite from Japan
… and minerals from lesser-known mines with rich and interesting histories.
Lazurite from the mine that provided the pigments for:
the blue scarf in Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” (1665), and …
the blue inset stones in the Mask of Tutankhamun (1323 BCE)
Native gold from the mines that the Romans used to finance their wars.
Radioactive minerals from the mine where Marie Curie got her uranium…
… the sample tags for these are often burned by radioactivity.
Many of our specimens are legacies of mines that motivated colonial occupations and enormous social violence ….
Hemimorphite from “Belgian Congo” (modern-day Zaire)
Cerussite from Broken Hill, Australia
Amethyst from Minas Gerais, Brazil
Silver ore from Potosi, Bolivia: “The Mountain That Eats Men”
Hemimorphite from “Rhodesia” (modern-day Zambia)
Dioptase from “German South West Africa” (modern-day Namibia)
Many are poison or carcinogenic ….
Native Arsenic in mineral form
Cinnabar, which can cause mercury poisoning
Orpiment, which can cause arsenic poisoning
Stibnite, which can cause antimony poisoning
Chrysotile asbestos, which can cause cancer
Many more are truly bizarre ….
Half-melted salt
The first atomic bomb created this mineral.
Close-up of the small spheres of liquid mercury that are seeping out of this rock.
These rocks were polished in the stomach of a dinosaur.
