Geology and Mineralogy

Summary

Curators of Earth Science collections in Swiss museums and worldwide use a variety of electronic databases for the inventory of minerals, rocks, meteorites, gems and related objects in their collections. For paleontological collections (fossils), databases closely related to those used for biological collections are used, but for the inventory of non-biological collections a generally accepted solution fulfilling all requirements is currently missing. „Specify“ is an open source software widely used for biological and paleontological collections, but still lacks the ability to handle other Earth Science objects. In the frame of this project the four largest Natural History Museums of Switzerland together with the Specify Collections Consortium (University of Kansas, USA) will develop and test a “Specify Geoscience Platform”, an extension of „Specify“ for Earth Science Collections. The integration of Geoscience Collections into Specify Software will be a key step in homogenizing database contents for Earth Science objects, starting with the four museums involved (Bern, Basel, Geneva, Lausanne), and will initiate further collaborations among other museums allowing an integration of the Earth Science collection contents into unifying databases like the Swiss Virtual Natural History Collection (SVNHC) or GeoCASe.

Results

All processed specimens:

Digitised "type" specimens^*:

• 60 reconditioned
• 71 databased

^{* reference specimen for naming and describing a species}

Summary

Living beings constitute the biodiversity with nearly 2 million species discovered, minerals constitute the geodiversity of the Earth, the Moon and the meteorites but with only 5'863 species described (November 2022). These minerals in the form of crystals compose the rocks and ores used since the birth of humanity. They provide the chemical elements necessary for civilizations: gold, copper, iron, aluminium, uranium and now lithium and rare earths for the ongoing energy transition. The presence of minerals on Earth evolves with geological time and even with human activities and the discovery of a new mineral species is always important, because its study allows us to better understand a small portion of the Earth's history. The approval of a new mineral species requires a study that is submitted to the vote of an international committee of specialists. The samples studied, called mineral types, must be preserved in a museum. This project aims at preserving, using modern techniques, and digitizing the mineral types of the geological museum of Lausanne. The techniques that will be developed in this way will benefit other Swiss museums that possess such objects. This project lays the foundations for a complete online catalogue of the mineralogical types of Swiss museums and describes the techniques for the permanent preservation of these precious samples.

Outreach

Publications

• Biagioni, C., Roth, P., Reynes, J., Robyr, M., Meisser, N. (2024) Zanelliite, IMA 2024-061, in IMA Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification (CNMNC) – Newsletter 82. European Journal of Mineralogy, 36 (6). 1005-1010, https://doi.org/10.5194/ejm-36-1005-2024, 2024.
• Kürsteiner, P., Reynes, J., Soom, M., Meisser, N. (2024) Dopplerit, aus dem Torfmoor von Gontenbad AI - ein Mineral? Berichte der St. Gallischen Natuwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft, 95, 319-331, https://naturmuseumsg.ch/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Kuersteiner-et-al-2024_Dopplerit.pdf
• Malcherek, T., Mihailova, B., Schlüter, J., Roth, P., Meisser, N. (2025) Metaheimite, IMA 2023-020a. in: CNMNC Newsletter 83, Eur. J. Mineral., 37, https://doi.org/10.5194/ejm-37-75-2025, 2025.
• Malcherek, T., Mihailova, B., Schlüter, J., Roth, P., Meisser, N. (2024) Heimite, PbCu2(AsO4)(OH)3·2H2O, a new mineral from the Grosses Chalttal deposit, Switzerland. European Journal of Mineralogy, 36, 153-164, https://ejm.copernicus.org/articles/36/153/2024/
• Plášil, J., Steciuk, G., Sejkora, J., Kampf, A.R., Uher, P., Ondrejka, M., Škoda, R., Dolníček, Z., Philippo, S., Guennou, M., Meisser, N., Rohlíček, J., Mees F. (2025) Extending the mineralogy of U6+ (I.): Crystal structure of lepersonnite-(Gd) and a description of the new mineral lepersonnite-(Nd). Mineralogial Magazine, accepted April 18, 2025.
• Plášil, J., Steciuk, G., Škoda, R., Sejkora, J., Dolníček, Z., Meisser, N., Ansermet, S., Slotta C. (2025) Extending the mineralogy of U6+ (II.): Barronite, a new uranyl silicate related to weeksite from Menzenschwand, Germany. Mineralogial Magazine, accepted April 18, 2025.
• Plášil, J., Steciuk, G., Škoda, R., Sejkora, J., Dolníček, Z., Meisser, N., Ansermet, S. and Slotta, C. (2024) Barronite, IMA 2024-053. CNMNC Newsletter 82, Mineralogical Magazine, 88, https://doi.org/10.1180/mgm.2024.98

Events

• Talk by Julien Reynes at the mineral show of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, entitled "Perennial conservation and digitization of the type minerals collection of the Muséum Cantonal des Sciences Naturelles à Lausanne (SwissCollNet project)".
• Talk during the Munich mineral show in late October 2023.
• Talk during the "Day of the collections" in January 2024.

Media coverage

• N. Meisser was invited by the RTS radio for the CQFD podcast on 5.06.2024 to talk about this discovery https://www.rts.ch/audio-podcast/2024/audio/l-heimite-le-mineral-cameleon-qui-revolutionne-la-geologie-28527963.html

Results

Summary

Meteorites are true extraterrestrials – pieces of other worlds. Researchers use them to gain and publish fascinating insights into the formation and history of the solar system, including Earth itself. Many museums and universities in Switzerland have small collections of meteorites, which are often in poor shape, in particular in smaller institutions. For example, these meteorites do not have modern names, classifications, and are often not stored in an ideal way. Some very rare and scientifically important meteorites from these collections go unnoticed for decades because no one knows about them! Therefore, the goal of this project is to create a digital, central inventory of all meteorites in institutional and public collections in Switzerland, so that these meteorites become accessible for scientific research. Another goal of the project is to help museum curators to take good care of their meteorite collections. For these purposes, a researcher will be sent to all museums and universities with meteorite collections to compile a complete and modern inventory. The resulting data table will be published Open Access (free to read) in a scientific journal and integrated into the future “Swiss Virtual Natural History Collection” (SVNHC) once it becomes available.

Outreach

• Eschrig, J., Meier, M.M.M. and Hofmann, B.A. (2025), A complete inventory of institutional and public meteorite collections in Switzerland. Meteorit Planet Sci. https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.14361
• Eschrig J., Meier MMM. (2023) Institutional and public meteorite collections in Switzerland: a first overview. 86th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society, Los Angeles, USA, Abstract 6299.