World's Largest Mineral Collection

The opening week of Terra Mineralia is over, setting the signal for the new permament exhibition whithin the walls of the recently restored city castle of Freiberg, Saxony (the most beloved place of my studies besides Madygen).

The exhibition features spectacular pieces from the private collection which Erika Pohl donated to the TU Bergakademie Freiberg. Together with the quite large mineral stock of the Bergakademie's Mineralogical Institute the new gains make the Freibergian collection the largest in the world (...not bad for a town of 40-odd-thousand inhabitants).

The opening celebrations were also the chance for us geoscience students and scientists to communicate what we are doing to the general public and to people from other university departments - so we organized the

GeoDays 2008. Within the premises of Terra Mineralia we had a geo-photo competition, a poster exhibition, and a small program of lectures and presentations on 3D modelling, sand, soil, moon rocks, saxonian vertebrate fossils etc.

Among other GeoDays volunteers I was also involved in the children's program: For some hours between Thursday and Saturday I was responsible for the "raw material" station in a point-collecting game:

The children had to connect objects of daily use with the minerals which served as raw materials - an idea realized by Alexandra Käßner, another PhD student of the geological institute (nice one, Alex!)

.... though it is not easy to keep countenance when you have two kindergarten groups - ten kids each - standing around you, keen on solving the quest in order to get a point. (The price? - I think some small colourful polished piece of mineral).

Go here for some GeoTage impressions (including me in the first pic).