FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Jordi Fabre]

This summer, with John White, I had the chance to visit the excellent mineral museum at the University of Delaware. Since then I wanted to share that experience with FMFers and now that finally I have some time I'm ready to do it.

The mineral museum of the University of Delaware is a small museum, almost a "miniature Museum" ;-) but surprisingly outstanding due to the good work of its curators; currently Dr. Sharon Fitzgerald and formerly Dr. Peter Leavens, who was in charge of the museum for 25 years. Dr. Sharon has managed to create an extraordinarily pleasant mineral museum that since its reopening in 2009 has established a well-deserved reputation. The presentation is exceptionally good, one of the best I've ever seen in any museum. The collection, although not represented by a very large number of specimens, is coherent and extremely aesthetic. Also it is fortunate to have among many “killer” specimens one "killer" that particularly appeals to me, a Willemite from Franklin (NJ), which alone justifies a visit to this Museum.

As there are already good reports about the Museum, my intention with this post is just to open a doorway to those other reports, as well as post some pictures of the museum by John White, Dr. Sharon Fitzgerald and Jake Slagle to complete this note. I hope that in reading these reports, the photos that accompany them, and the few photos I post here will serve to give a more complete picture of this amazing museum, located in a place where few would expect such quality. If anyone intends to visit the museum soon, from September 2012 through May 2013 the museum is presenting an exhibition of Rhodochrosites from mines in Colorado, including the famous Sweet Home mine in Alma, the Sunnyside mine, the Moose mine and many others, all from the private collection of Dave Bunk. To learn more about this temporary exhibition click here

The links to learn more about this museum, my suggestions are: the two threads published by Jake Slagle in his mineral blog: University of Delaware Mineralogical Museum: A Private Visit and Delaware Mineralogical Museum Reopens and Delaware Mineralogical Museum Reopen, the (as always) well-photographed and complete thread published by Gail Spann: University of Delaware Museum of Minerals, Gail and Jim Spann visit, and this one from the always didactic John White The Mineralogical Museum at the University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, USA.
To complete the list you can also visit the note published by Jessica Simonoff in Mindat, and for general information about the museum, here and here you have the official information provided by the University of Delaware.

BTW it would be very nice if Jake, Gail, John, Dr. Sharon, Jessica, or someone else has some more images of the museum available and wants to post them here in order to complete this thread. So, please add photos! ;-)

Many thanks to John White and Dr. Sharon Fitzgerald for the revision of the text and for the details

[John S. White]

OFL (our fearless leader) visiting the mineral museum at the University of Delaware (Newark) this summer with me, in short pants. Quelle bêtise!

[jakslagle]

I was asked to foward some images shot on visits to the Mineral Museum at the University of Delaware. Many were shot through glass rather hurriedly,and none were measured. Rather than try to guess the dimensions relative to labels and position, I'll post some images and leave it to the editors as to which if any are appropriate to show

[jakslagle]

I attempted to post the images to follow yesterday, but could have ultimately failed to submit them . Or it's possible they were rejected because of my guesses regarding the dimensions. I shot them rather hurriedly through glass. If the problem was the former, here's another try.