Our mineral collection is ranged according to the Dana System.
And that is a system based on the chemistry
of the particular minerals.
So that way, all similar kinds of minerals
are going to be found together in the same part
of the collection, which makes it
very accessible for scientists.
Not very good for the public, but good for scientists.
And so for example in this part of the collection,
we're dealing with silicates.
And one of the more dramatic silicates
in terms of just crystals and color and gems
is, of course, the mineral beryl.
So Russ, why don't we open a couple of the beryl drawers
here, and we can just give an idea
of how the collection is laid out.
So each of the specimens gets a box.
And then within the box, each specimen has a number on it.
And that's keyed to a computerized database, which
allows us to keep track of where everything is
and what's been studied and what's been done with it.
And so of course with beryl, we can
see this wonderful variety of not just crystal sizes
and shapes but also all different colors that
make beryl such a popular mineral in the gem world.
So the blue-greens, the aquamarines-- there's
a big aquamarine crystal here-- to the pink morganites.
The greens, an emerald, and the more golden-colored heliodors.
So all the natural colors of beryl.
Well, let's see.
In this drawer, within a particular mineral
we've arranged our collection alphabetically by locality.
So we're in the first drawer, I think, of the beryls.
So we're in the A's to B's.
So places like Afghanistan and Brazil,
and in fact we've got pretty much a domination here
by Brazil, which is where a lot of the beryl gems come from.
And Russ, let's take a look at the next drawer here.
So here we've still got some Brazil,
but we also get into Burma and then California and morganites,
which are originally found in California.
And some emeralds from Colombia, under the C's.
And I'm continuing on.
We also get into-- we always pull a drawer
out underneath just in case, so we don't have an accident here.
And so then we get into, you know.
We also have the states mixed in with the countries, again
alphabetically.
So we've got some aquamarines from Colorado
and then we get into Ireland and Italy and Mozambique
and Namibia, and on and on throughout the world.
And this really nice dark one here probably
was-- what is this.
Yep, Mozambique.
This is a morganite crystal, or least
most of a morganite crystal, from Mozambique.
And we can see that it's a really nice deep pink
color, more so than the typical morganites.
Well, this is a fairly new locality compared to many.
This is from a place called Erongo in Namibia,
in the southern part of Africa.
And so we have this nice striking contrast
between the aquamarine crystals, the green beryl,
the black schorl-- a variety of tourmaline, which actually, I
think, turns out to be foitite, isn't it?
I think when they analyze it, it turns out
that it may not all of it is schorl,
it's a slightly different chemical composition.
And then the white albite.