Category: Outreach

Ted Bornhorst (GMES), executive director of the A.E. Seaman Mineral Museum was quoted in the story “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stone!” in Michigan Blue. The story involved fluorescent rocks, popularly known as Yooperlites.

To find the fluorescing stones, Erik Rintamaki recommends Lake Superior beaches anywhere “from Whitefish Point west.” Theodore Bornhorst suggests scouring the Keweenaw Peninsula shoreline from Copper Harbor to Ontonagon. Prime picking comes in early spring after winter ice picks up stones from deeper water and transports them to the beach.

Read more at Michigan Blue, by Leslie Mertz.

The A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum exhibited at the Kalamazoo Rock and Mineral Show May 3-5, 2019. This was the 60th anniversary of the show and instead of choosing a mineral as the show’s theme, the event celebrated the hobby of mineral collecting and the history of the show. The museum’s exhibit was titled “Semiprecious Gems.” Museum staff did not attend the show and instead shipped a carefully prepared exhibit with instructions for setup by a Kalamazoo club member. This is a cost-effective method to enhance the visibility of the museum. This year’s attendance at the Kalamazoo show was about 7,500, which includes 1,000 secondary school children and chaperones.

The A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum was exhibited at the 65th Annual Tucson Gem and Mineral Show held Feb. 14 -17, 2019. The Tucson show is the largest and most prestigious gem and mineral show in the world.

The theme of exhibits this year was “Wulfenite is Loved.” The museum’s exhibit fit with the theme and was titled “How does wulfenite form?” It featured text, graphics and mineral specimens to explain and illustrate the formation of wulfenite. Mineral specimens were used to emphasize how primary sulfide minerals are oxidized to form wulfenite. In addition, a suite of mineral specimens that form in the same environment and are associated with wulfenite were included in the exhibit.

The museum’s exhibit was awarded the “most educational exhibit by an institution” from Friends of Mineralogy, a non-profit, national organization founded in 1970.

Kazuya Fujita, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Michigan State University, has been awarded the 2019 Charles A. Salotti Earth Science Education Award sponsored by the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum and the Michigan Earth Science Teachers Association (MESTA).

The award is in recognition of excellence in informal Earth science education and mentoring. This award has been made since 1999, with support of the Edith Dunn and E. Wm. Heinrich Mineralogical Research Trust, the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum and the Salotti family.

Chuck Schepke, a secondary teacher in Roscommon, Michigan and past MESTA President, was the MESTA Chair of the Charles A. Salotti Earth Science Education Award committee. He cites Kazuya for his “efforts in organizing and supporting MiQuakes Teacher Seismology Network through MESTA and IRIS and providing Earthquake Workshops for K-12 teachers and these only begin to show the impact Kazuya has had on geoscience education in the State of Michigan and at the National level.

Fujita’s 25 years of service has provided teachers and their students the ability to collect and analyze “real-world” data from their own backyard through installation of seismographs in their classrooms and then mentoring teachers how to interpret data.”

Seaman Museum Executive Director Ted Bornhorst said “The museum is grateful for MESTA’s efforts at soliciting candidates for the award and selecting the awardee. This year’s awardee is most deserving of the honor. We hope that Professor Fujita’s work and this recognition may further inspire others to advance Earth science education and mentoring.”

By A. E. Seaman Mineral Musuem.

Nearly all of the world’s major mineral museums have one or more donated private collections that provide the foundation upon which they build a museum collection that is greater than the sum of its parts. With a recent and most generous donation of approximately 1,000 specimens, Lance T. Hampel, president of Hampel Corporation, a Germantown, Wisconsin-based plastics manufacturing company, has provided the museum with such a foundational collection and continues to be one of its principal benefactors. Hampel previously donated more than 1,600 superb specimens in 2006 and 2007, and also supported construction of the main museum building at 1404 E. Sharon Avenue.

The following descriptions highlight some of the more significant worldwide specimens in his recent donation and are already on exhibit in the museum’s Mineral Treasures Gallery. Perhaps the most significant individual specimen is a 50 cm wide by 30 cm tall group of calcite crystals from the Shullsburg, Wisconsin, lead-zinc mines, and is among the finest large calcite specimens ever recovered from the Shullsburg district. Another calcite of similar proportions from the Elmwood mine, Carthage, Tennessee, is particularly noteworthy for its size (43 cm tall) and golden color, making it a world-class specimen with considerable visual impact.

The Ojuela Mine, Mapimi, Durango, Mexico is a famous locality from which Hampel has donated a spectacular plate of yellow-green adamite crystals, 22 cm long. Trepca, Kosovo, is another well-known mining district, from which Hampel’s recent donation included an excellent suite of hydrothermal vein specimens of calcite, quartz and a variety of sulfide species. Tsumeb, Namibia, has been called the finest mineral locality in the world, and is underrepresented in the museum’s collection.

Since the closure of the mine, large museum-quality specimens are virtually unobtainable. This is especially true for an outstanding 23 cm specimen of bright green crystals of dioptase on white calcite in the donation, of which together with a 17 cm plate of duftite, results in a significant improvement for the museum’s Tsumeb holdings.

The quality, depth and breadth of the museum’s collection of crystallized native copper from the world’s premier locality, the Keweenaw Peninsula, is unmatched in the world. The Hampel donation contains a significant number of attractive native copper and silver specimens from the White Pine Mine, Ontonagon County, and several are better than the many high-quality specimens already in the museum’s collection.

Hampel has a long-standing personal and professional relationship with recent past curator of the museum and professor emeritus, George Robinson and past director Stanley Dyl. According to the museum’s Executive Director Ted Bornhorst, “Even long past their retirements George and Stan continue to enhance the quality of the museum because of the relationships they developed with many of the museum’s friends. George and Stan really deserve the principal credit for Lance’s donations.”

By the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum.