[July 06][Aug 05][april 05][Aug 04][May 04][May 03][aug 02][jan 02][oct 01][june 01]

THIS UPDATE: AUGUST 2004

Hesselbacher Room

We did it. The Hesselbacher Room, the newest addition to the Warren Museum, was opened to the public in time for the New Jersey Earth Science Association show in April. This new room has a different “feel” to it than the other two rooms, in part because George Hesselbacher, whose minerals are featured there, collected specimens mostly in the miniature to small-cabinet size range. Accordingly, we chose to display them in shallow “cubbyhole” cases. Ten of these cases, the largest only two feet across, are arranged along the south wall of the Hesselbacher Room. Within them are some of George’s finest treasures: a world-class benitoite crystal plate, a two-inch powellite crystal from India, fine specimens of brazilianite, grossular, gemmy spodumene, on and on. George specialized in collecting fine examples of fluorescent crystals, certainly one of the more challenging aspects of the hobby. His success is evident to all who enter this newest room of the Warren Museum.

We are still tinkering with some of the other displays in the Hesselbacher Room, such as the newly installed (by Pete Gillis) exhibit on polarized fluorescence. We will continue this process, moving things around and trying new ideas, until we are fully satisfied with the results. Our new goal is to finalize the displays in time for the fall Franklin show (September 25-26), during which we will hold a formal dedication of the Hesselbacher Room, with George’s family in attendance. Please plan on joining us.

Rotating UV light

Speaking of tinkering, one of the most inveterate tinkerers we know of is Bill Gardner of Phoenix, Arizona, who markets the Way Too Cool line of ultraviolet lights. Bill has come up with a light that features a continuously rotating quartz tube on the inside, with different UV phosphors painted onto different parts of the tube. The net effect is mesmerizing: as the tube rotates, the specimens beneath are first bathed in shortwave ultraviolet light, then medium wave, then longwave, then shortwave again, all of this taking place in seamless transitions. The effect is quite different from the more traditional displays that employ timers to trigger first one light, then another, then a third. We have Bill’s prototype light in the museum and intend to use it in a display of minerals that fluoresce different colors under different wavelengths of ultraviolet light. If this display turns out as spectacular as we envision, it will become a permanent part of the Hesselbacher Room.

Calcite-willemite slabs

Don and Pat Snyder, longtime patrons of the Sterling Hill Mining Museum, once more drove clear across the country (from Richland, Washington) to deliver gifts to our door. In addition to 10,000(!!) grab bags of minerals, they brought with them two large, one could almost say immense, slabs of highly fluorescent calcite-willemite ore, each measuring about 38” x 28”, for display in the Warren Museum. What’s more, they also brought custom-built wooden cases for these slabs, as well as two shortwave TripleBright ultraviolet lights to power the displays. Now that’s support! One of the slabs has found a nice place for itself in the Hesselbacher Room, and the other will be located in an adjoining room.

Collection management

As our collection of fluorescent minerals continues to grow, so too do our responsibilities for its proper care and use. We have made great strides on this during the past two years. First, we have a secured storage area in the Geotech Center, where most of the collection is housed. This room features ranks of steel shelves and cabinets for specimen storage. As time permits we are organizing the collection, mostly along species lines but also by locality where appropriate. We have redoubled our efforts to catalogue our holdings, for only by organization and cataloguing does an accumulation of minerals become a working collection and a scientific resource. Our collections database, the product of months of work by Don Halterman, has recently been expanded, with many new applications, by Tommy Armstrong. Tommy does this kind of thing for a living, but in a different field: he works at a wastewater treatment plant and designs the software for tracking and correlating reams of data on water chemistry and quality. Between Don and Tommy we now have one of the finest collections databases in the country.
 

Warren|About us|What's Here|How to Visit|Specimen Photos|About Fluorescence|Educators|Search|Links|Contacts

Send mail to tacco@ptd.net with questions or comments about this web site.