User:Tillman/Mineral collecting

Azurite specimen from the Morenci mine, Morenci, Arizona, USA. Morenci is the largest copper mine in North America, and Morenci copper mineral specimens are beautiful, abundant, and relatively inexpensive.

Mineral collecting is the hobby of systematically collecting and displaying mineral specimens.

Reasons to collect minerals:

• Many minerals are strikingly beautiful, and long-lived.
• To learn about mineralogy, the local mining industry, and local geology.
• To explore the outdoors.
• To socialize and trade with other mineral collectors.

Beginning collectors may start with an inexpensive kit of labeled minerals, typically found at a natural history museum gift shop, a local rock shop, or a local gem and mineral show. Local public libraries will have useful books, and local mineral, gem or rockhounding clubs may offer advice, fellowship, field trips, and inexpensive specimens. Some internet resources for beginners are listed below.

See also

• Rockhounding
• Collecting fossils
• Lapidary
• Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, the world's largest
• Mineralientage, the Munich Mineral Show, Europe's largest

References and External links

• Getting Started in Rock and Mineral Collecting, a brief introduction.
• Beginning Guide to Mineral Collecting at mindat.org
• Tips for collecting minerals in the field, by the Mineralogical Society of America.
  • Collector's Corner, at MSA
• The American Federation of Mineral Societies, with links to regional and local clubs in the USA.

[[Category:Collecting] [[Category:Geology] [[Category:Mineralogy]