How do you move 6000 minerals?

Thursday 5th March 2026 at 7:00 pm

Mawson Lecture Theatre,
Department of Earth Sciences,
Adelaide University

Kieran Meaney
Collection Manager of Mineralogy
South Australian Museum
 
Abstract: How do you move 6000 minerals across state lines, while keeping track of them all? This is the challenge that the South Australian Museum faced in 2024. After purchasing a large private collection from a collector in Melbourne, museum staff needed to rapidly pack, catalogue, and ship nearly 6000 high value specimens to Adelaide and register them into the collection. The next challenge: finding enough room to store them all!
Come behind the scenes and see how this mammoth task was undertaken. You’ll hear about how the museum decides what to include in its collections, and what a day in the life looks like for a collection manager caring for 40,000 mineral specimens. But most importantly, you’ll get to see the breathtaking new additions to the mineral collection.

Bio: Dr. Kieran Meaney is the collection manager of mineralogy at the South Australian Museum. Kieran completed a PhD at the University of Adelaide that focussed on the structural and metamorphic history of the basement inliers to the Adelaide Hills, and their relationship to the rest of Australia. After graduating, they spent time at the University of New England, NSW, teaching undergraduate geology and working with a science outreach program to inspire the next generation of Earth scientists. In 2024, Kieran took up a position at the South Australian Museum and currently cares for the minerals and meteorites collection.

   University policy is to close doors at 7.00 pm, so be sure to arrive punctually! If you are late you may call the number affixed to the door. However this will only be available until the main lecture starts (around 7.10 to 7.15 pm). 
Refreshments will be served in the tea room following the meeting.
   The meeting will be zoomed. The link will be distributed to members by email a day or two before the meeting,



 

Peter Briggs and Kym Dixon will resume their tutorials again in 2026. The aim of the tutorials is to explain some of the common concepts and terms that come up from time to time in lectures and on field excursions. This will certainly benefit those who are new to geology but also provide a refresher for the more experienced members.

The format is that the tutorial will be in the Mawson Lecture Theatre and start at 6:40 and run for 10 minutes. This will allow time before 7:00 to set up for the formal start to the meeting.

For those who would like to attend the tutorial, try to arrive before 6:40 and sit more towards the left-hand side of the theatre (as viewed from an audience perspective).

Kym Dixon