Category: outreach

WLUC TV6 aired a story about students at Calumet-Laurium-Keweenaw Elementary School building a boulder garden. The project is funded by a Michigan Space Grant Consortium geoheritage pilot grant to Michigan Tech to create boulder gardens and rock walks at CLK and E. B. Holman Elementary Schools, using representative rocks of the Keweenaw.

Students are also designing interpretative signage to accompany the installations with info about rock types and how geology has influenced life in the Keweenaw.

The prestigious journal, Nature, published a correspondence last week titled “A rescue package for imperiled collection” by Ted Bornhorst, executive director of the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum, along with co-authors Chris Poulsen, chair and professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Michigan and Rod Ewing, professor in the Department of Geological Sciences and Frank Stanton, professor in nuclear security at Stanford University.

The correspondence was in response to an editorial in Nature on how academic natural history collections can be saved from destruction by uniting them at regional hubs. The correspondence discusses “rescue” the University of Michigan mineral collection under an agreement between the University of Michigan and Michigan Tech termed the Michigan Mineral Alliance. (To learn more about the agreement see here.)

The correspondence is publicly available as part of Springer Nature Content Sharing Initiative here.

The first time I saw Lake Superior, I had no words. I couldn’t describe the majesty of this tremendous body of fresh water.

Growing up on the East Coast of Canada, I didn’t think much could rival the mighty Atlantic Ocean. I discovered how wrong I was when I moved to Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula seven years ago to study geoscience education at Michigan Technological University in Houghton. Since then, my love for the Lake and my curiosity about the region have grown.

Read more at Lake Superior Magazine, by Erika Vye.

The A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum announces that one of its specimens is featured on the poster commemorating the 2017 Tucson Gem and Mineral Show (TGMS).

The specimen is a 13 cm copper crystal group from the Phoenix Mine in Keweenaw County. The specimen is among the finest copper specimens in the museum’s holdings. It was donated to Michigan Tech by Lucius L. Hubbard circa 1917.

Read more at Tech Today, by the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum.

The A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum exhibited at the 72nd annual Greater Detroit Gem, Mineral and Fossil Show held Oct. 14-16 at the Expo Center of Macomb Community College hosted by the Michigan Mineralogical Society. The show consisted of 56 exhibits, 40 mineral dealers selling to the attending public and presentations.

Ted Bornhorst, executive director of the museum, presented “Nature’s Mineral Masterpieces from the Keweenaw Peninsula” on Sunday afternoon to an audience of about 50 people. The museum held a silent auction as a featured Sunday event.

The museum maintains satellite exhibits at several locations around the state. The satellite exhibit in the St. Ignace Welcome Center was updated by Bornhorst en route to the mineral show. In addition, the museum’s satellite exhibit at Michigan Tech Research Institute in Ann Arbor was exchanged for a display of Variscite Nodules from Clay Canyon, Utah. The nodules were donated by George B. Robbe (1884-1963), a Michigan Tech alumnus from 1913 who pioneered in chemical extraction techniques for copper ore beneficiation while he was working for the Utah Copper Company at Bingham Canyon in the 1920s.

A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum welcomes students, faculty and staff to visit and see why the museum is the No. one local destination on TripAdvisor. Admission is waived so you can visit on your lunch hour or any convenient time. Professional visitors accompanied by faculty or staff are also welcome.

The museum showcases the beauty and splendor of nature’s masterpieces, minerals. The museum exhibits the best mineral collection from the Great Lakes region as well as minerals from around the world. Enjoy fluorescent minerals in one of the best exhibits in the U.S. Visit the 17-ton native copper slab housed in the copper pavilion that holds the Guinness world record. Come visit before the pavillion closes in November for the winter.

The museum welcomes students and employees to visit the “gem” of Michigan Tech. Fall hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

From Tech Today, by the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum.