Who am I?

First let me give you some vital stats:

Born on August 31st, 1966 in Vienna, Austria
I live with my wife Susi and her son Fidi from an earlier marriage

I started to collect minerals at the early age of 4, when I crawled behind a construction vehicle that built a forest road at a small village in Carinthia, where my parents spent their vacation. I was magically drawn by the garnet crystals that appeared in the ripped-up soil, fascinated by their dark red color and their regular shape. It was only much later that I learned that they were Almandine crystals in the form of Dodecahedra.
Maybe fate had its hands in play when a friend of my parents added a few rock crystals to my growing hoard. This moment in time changed the path my life would take and transformed me from a “normal child” into a mineral addict.
Friends and relatives were only too happy to have something they could present me with at birthdays, Christmas or other occasions, when youngsters customarily got presents. Thus my collection grew and grew. I became a regular customer at the library in my home town and people got used to “the kid with the tic for rocks”.
Another lucky twist of fate occurred when I was 12 years of age. My parents found an article in a magazine that advertised (among others) a course in mineralogy held by Dr. Karl Becherer who was at that time lector at the Institute of Mineralogy and Crystallography at the University of Vienna.
As the only boy amongst adults, many of them senior citizens, I was immediately “adopted” by those attending this course with religious faith. Dr. Becherers greatest gift was his unwavering love for all things mineral that he shared with us in abundance and incredible talent. From the beginning I was captured and my life changed its rhythm from “weekend to weekend”, as would be normal in any school-child, to “Tuesday to Tuesday” when the courses were held. At that time my understanding of chemistry, physics and mathematics was limited, but I meticulously copied everything Dr. Becherer wrote on the blackboard (yes – at that time it was still an old fashioned blackboard and chalk). Only now I can really value the amount of time my father spent with me the day after each new installment of the series, explaining what it all meant, often only one small step ahead of me. So by the time I was 14 I had a pretty good idea of angular functions and x-ray crystallography.
The day after I completed my education in school I proudly went to the university to start my training in mineralogy. Along the way my collection had followed the biblical advice to multiply, and multiply it did! When I rented my first own flat, the first thing I did was to see to the placement of my collection, and only when that was properly installed, other things became relevant, like sleeping, cooking facilities and the likes.
What I completely missed, to the silent relief of my parents, were the usual attics of puberty. I had different things to do. And still today, I do not know how to drive a car…
And still my luck held. I met people that continued the support in my drive. Susanne and Herbert Kaiser are mineral dealers, specializing in minerals from South Africa and Namibia, who gave me an opportunity to work at their outfit, earning money and at the same time being socially insured and thus secured. I worked for them until after my studies were completed with an MSc degree and the decline of mineral collecting as a hobby forced me to look for a different employment. I am now working as an engineer in telecommunication, following the footsteps of my father.
Even longer I had the friendship of Fritz Schreiber, a mineral collector from my home town, whose collection of minerals from the Lavrion area is one of the best on a worldwide scale. Many of his specimens can be seen on Mindat.org. He infused me with the love for this beautiful, mineralogically most interesting area, full of kind and helpful people. He took me along to field trips there, and together we have spent what has probably been the most fulfilling time in my life.
The friendship to these three people also reflected on my scientific work. From material bought and collected in South Africa I was able to describe two new minerals, effenbergerite and wesselsite, and from Lavrion I lucked out with three new species mereiterite, niedermayrite and drobecite.
Unfortunately luck will hold true only so far, and in 2003 the pendulum swung to the other side. I was diagnosed with intestine cancer. It is a fight that I have yet to win decisively, but since the end of 2009 I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. I still need medication, but I have started to pick up where I have left off.

For Christmas 2010 I got a WILD M420 Macroscope with a Nikon D7000 Camera attached. With this equipment I have started to document my collection photographically. The best or most interesting specimens I will share on Mindat.

Selected publications:

Giester, G; Rieck, B: Mereiterite, K2Fe[SO4]2•4H2O, a new leonite-type mineral from the Lavrion mining district, Greece. European Journal of Mineralogy 7 (1995), 559-566

Giester, G; Rieck, B; Brandstätter, F: Niedermayrite, Cu4Cd(SO4)2(OH)6•4H2O, a new mineral from the Lavrion District, Greece. Mineralogy and Petrology 63 (1998), 19-34

Giester, G; Lengauer, CL; Rieck, B: The crystal structure of nesquehonite, MgCO3•3H2O, from Lavrion, Greece. Berichte der Deutschen Mineralogischen Gesellschaft 1 Beih. zu European Journal of Mineralogy, 11, MinWien 99 (1999), 83

Wendel, W; Rieck, B: Die wichtigsten Mineralfundstellen Lavrions. LAPIS 24 (1999) 7/8, 25-33 (in German)

Wendel, W; Rieck, B: Silber, Arsen und Antimon: Vererzungen im Revier Plaka (Teil I). LAPIS 24 (1999) 7/8, 53-58 (in German)

Rieck, B; Rieck, P: Silber, Arsen und Antimon: Vererzungen im Revier Plaka (Teil II). LAPIS 24 (1999) 7/8, 59-63 (includes a complete listing of the minerals of Lavrion known at that time) (in German)

Rieck, B: Seltene Arsenate aus der Kamariza und weitere Neufunde. LAPIS 24 (1999) 7/8, 68-76 (in German)

Rieck, B; Wendel, W: Sounion - Hilarion Top aktuell: Funde vom Frühjahr '99. LAPIS 24 (1999) 7/8, 77-78 (in German)

Giester, G; Lengauer, CL; Rieck, B: The crystal structure of nesquehonite, MgCO3•3H2O, from Lavrion, Greece. Mineralogy and Petrology 70 (2000), 153-163

Giester, G; Rieck, B: Drobecite, a novel mineral from the Lavrion, Greece, deposit. Acta Mineralogica-Petrographica, Abstract Series 6, IMA 2010, 20th
General Meeting of the International Mineralogical Association, 21-27 August, Budapest, Hungary (2010), 496

Giester, G; Rieck, B: Wesselsite, SrCu[Si4O10], a further new gillespite-group mineral from the Kalahari Field, South Africa. Mineralogical Magazine, 60 (1996), 795-798.

Giester, G; and Rieck, B: Effenbergerite, BaCu[Si4O10], a new mineral from the Kalahari Manganese Field, South Africa: description and crystal structure. Mineralogical Magazine, 58 (1994), 663–670.

Rieck, B: Neue Minerale aus dem Lagerstätten-Bezirk Lavrion/Griechenland und den Kalahari Mangan Feldern/Republik Südafrika. PhD Thesis (unpubl.) 183 pp. (in German)