Update 25/11/05

Micromount collection
AFM / Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris

History

General conditions

Status of the collection

File download

1) History and goals of the collection

• In 1985, Jean-François Poullen, curator of the collections of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (ENSMP), lays the foundations of a collaboration project between the AFM and the ENSMP Museum for the creation of a regional micromounts collection, which would originally complement the collections hosted by the museum

• The regional collection of the school was created by a decree issued by the "Comité de Salut Public" at the time of the French Revolution, more than two centuries ago. It was meant "to gather all the productions of the Republic, arranged by localities".
The relations established since the creation of the AFM between the association and the museum could be focused on a support to the Museum in order to create such a collection ("registered office" of the AFM being at the museum, 60 Boulevard Saint Michel).

• On Friday January 24^th, 1985 at 6 p.m., that is less than one month after the creation of the AFM, Pierre Gatel, the first president of the association, presented the first micromounts of the new regional collection to Mr. Poullen, museum curator, and to Mr. Phan, mineralogy professor at the school.

• On October 1^st, 1987, a convention between the ENSMP and the AFM is signed for a 10-year period (as from January 1, 1987), in order to create a micromount collection, aiming at giving an overview, which would be as complete as possible, of the minerals which can be collected on the French territory.

• On October 1^st, 1997, this convention between the ENSMP and the AFM was renewed for 10 years between Mr. Georges Favreau, president of the AFM and Mrs. Lydie Touret, museum curator.
This collection will make it possible to safeguard a mineralogical heritage which, without our support, would no longer be accessible to the future generations.

• Besides the collecting of specimens carried out at local level by the regional delegates, the Annual Meetings also allow to collect additional specimens.
In 1997, when the donated specimens were estimated to be less than 1000, Pierre Gatel floated the idea to reach 2000 specimens by January 1, 2000. For want of time, the collected specimens pile up and are not catalogued.

• In a first step, Gerard Butty starts to gather the boxes, but this is a hard task. Serge Lavarde takes over the collection management at the Annual Meeting in Blagnac, in October 2001. During the meeting a little more than 200 boxes add to the previous donations. Once all the unclassified boxes are located, the long recording and preparatory mounting work of the specimens can resume, and after a 6-month work, the collection reaches1994 specimens.
Serge Lavarde then creates a file summarizing all the mineral species described in the various articles of the "Cahier des Micromonteurs", the association magazine, and including the name of each mineral described but not already in the collection catalogue. He sends new requests for donations to his fellow collectors using various means. This is how the "2000 samples" target was reached, the collection totalling 2068 specimens in July 2002.

2) General conditions

The collection consists of donations from the AFM members as raw specimens or specimens mounted according to the following standard:

• Micromounts assembled on a black balsa pedestal, glued on a sticker of the same color, then stuck on the lid of a transparent plastic box of the most common type ("German-type" : 28x28x22 mm).

The samples are to be sent to your regional delegate who will take care to transmit them to the person in charge for the collection inside the AFM: Serge Lavarde (serge.lavarde@wanadoo.fr). The collection will be accessible to the AFM members on appointment with the museum curator (Mrs. Lydie Touret).

3) Status of the collection - News

4) File download