Christopher ("Chris") Stanley born in 1954 in Nottingham, England is an ore mineralogist and economic geologist.

His inspiration for a career in mineralogy came from early family visits to the Peak District and, in particular, underground visits to the "Blue John" mines in Castleton.

As a boy he was a choral scholar at Southwell Minster, where he succeeded Andrew Parnell as Head Chorister under Kenneth Beard. Following BSc and PhD degrees at the University of Aston in Birmingham he accepted a post as an ore mineralogist at the British Museum (Natural History) in 1980.

At the BM(NH)/NHM, he worked closely with Alan Criddle in producing the 2nd issue of the Quantitative Data File for Ore Minerals published in 1986 and the much expanded 3rd issue published in 1993. Other books have been "Minerals of the English Lake District: Caldbeck Fells", co-authored with Mick Cooper and "Gold" co-authored with Richard Herrington and Bob Symes.

With more than 100 peer reviewed scientific papers, and a part in the characterisation of more than thirty new mineral species, he was honoured in 1998 by the naming of a new silver palladium selenide mineral 'chrisstanleyite' from the Hope's Nose deposit, Devon, for his contributions to ore mineralogy.

He was appointed Deputy Head of Mineralogy in 1996, a position he still holds. He has conducted fieldwork in Europe, Canada, Australia, Russia and Central Asia and made a substantial contribution to the ore collections of the Natural History Museum.

In 2007, he discovered that a new mineral he was working on, jadarite, had the same chemistry as kryptonite in the film "Superman Returns". This resulted in global media coverage culminating in:

Time Magazine - Top 10 Scientific Discoveries 2007. #10 Real-life kryptonite
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/top10/article/0,30583,1686204_1686252_1690961,00.html

BBC Most Popular Stories of 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7116765.stm