Crystallized wonders

Did you know you can visit this glittering array of kaleidoscopic natural beauty in person whenever you want? You just need to navigate the labyrinthine halls of the Morrill Science Center to find room 243 in the south building, home to the Rausch Mineral Gallery. If you’re really lucky, you’ll also find Mike Williams, professor of geology, who knows the history of the gallery—and the collection it houses—better than anyone.

The gallery has a magnetism to it. A live camera feed, installed for the safekeeping of the collection, has serendipitously captured moments as beautiful as the collection itself. Dates, proposals, and even an elopement have taken place there. (Williams also has romantic ties to the space, but more on that later.)

The gallery opened in 2013 and displays over 200 minerals that the late Professor of Chemistry Marvin Rausch collected throughout his lifetime. Rausch dedicated nearly four decades of teaching and research to the university, retiring in 2001. After he died in 2008, his family decided the minerals should be housed at UMass Amherst. The stunning assemblage of minerals represents mines and collection points from all over the world. It not only serves to teach students enrolled in Earth, geographic, and climate science courses but also acts as an attraction to the field of geology itself.

Students of all ages, usually fifth grade and up, take trips to the gallery with their science teachers to get a glimpse into the field of mineralogy. Undergrads also use the collection to learn more about the physics and chemistry involved in the formation of minerals and crystals. Students enrolled in Geology 311—Mineralogy, for example, each choose a mineral to “adopt” for the semester. Williams explains, “As they adopt the mineral, they research its history, where around the world it can be found, and then put together a slide with all the information they’ve found, along with an interesting fact. And then we show that on the screen outside the gallery. They get really into it and are starting to think about how to use minerals to educate others.”

All of the minerals are enclosed in lit glass cases, because despite how solid they look, many are actually quite fragile. Each has a corresponding card identifying the mineral and providing background.

Even with all the impressive specimens, the shorter display case in the middle of the gallery may just be the crowd favorite. Under normal conditions, the rocks within don’t look like anything special compared to the sparkly gems displayed in other cases. But once a timed UV light cycles on, the fluorescent minerals imbued in each specimen glow vivid orange, violet, crimson, and emerald. At the very end of that case is a large cut of a pink-and-green mineral known as watermelon tourmaline. A tag shows that the installation was placed in honor of the late Sheila Seaman, a lauded and beloved professor of mineralogy and petrology, and the wife of Williams. “Mineralogy can be considered a rather tedious field of study, but she really had a way of bringing it to life,” remarks Williams. “I think, in that way, the dedication is particularly meaningful to her students.”

The museum is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and has recently undergone an upgrade to add newly gifted specimens to the collection and provide more educational information about their relation to each other and their various uses.

Warning! The combinations of colors and textures you’ll find here are astounding and you might be so captivated that you’ll end up here for hours. But hours well spent.