Royal Cornwall Museum reveals stunning new mineral gallery

Tindle News

Dedicated to the rich history and future of minerals and mining in Cornwall, the new gallery is an exploration of Cornwall's mining heritage, featuring rare mineral specimens, interactive displays, and fascinating historical artefacts. Highlighting the geological wonders of the region and the pivotal role that mining has played in shaping Cornwall's industrial and cultural landscape, the new gallery is a major milestone in the institution’s history.

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00:00Minerals form in all kinds of different ways, some form deep within the earth at real furnace

00:28like temperatures, they can form at the earth's surface when lava from a volcano crystallizes,

00:34or they can form in real everyday conditions. Minerals are forming now in and on the earth.

00:44There's such a huge range of minerals that have formed in Cornwall and as a result it was a hot

00:50spot for mining which created a huge number of jobs for Cornish people and in turn that meant

00:55that it shaped culture and it shaped identity. There were people who knew the underground

01:02landscape as well as they knew the town that they lived in. We've been doing this here for

01:06thousands of years, it's just a really important factor into who we are and how we live.

01:13Minerals can be really beautiful materials with lovely crystal forms and of course they can have

01:21very beautiful colours as well. But as a scientist I also really like minerals because of the stories

01:28that they can reveal about how the earth has formed and all of the earth's processes and how they work.

01:36Minerals are really the building block of everything, if you don't grow it you have to

01:41mine it and what we mine is minerals. In Cornwall we have elements such as lithium, tin and tungsten

01:48and all of these metals are currently undergoing a resurgence in exploration for them. Most of the

01:53time they're processed into the metals and compounds that we use in various technologies

01:58like wind turbines and solar panels and everything we need for the green transition.

02:02I think the exciting thing about Cornwall is that there is so much history and so much data

02:10associated with that history. We found maps that haven't been seen for hundreds of years

02:15and we can take the data from those maps, put them into modern technology, see them in three

02:20dimensions. It was never possible before. It's a continuum from the past right through to

02:26the future. We need to go out and find the metals and minerals that contain those elements that we

02:31need to have for renewable energy technologies. We probably don't think about them very much

02:37every day and yet everything we do every day relies on minerals. It's also about the people

02:42that went underground and they brought them out. It's about Cornish culture and Cornish

02:46distinctiveness. It's about Cornish landscape and biodiversity and there's just so much there

02:52to learn and be inspired by.

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