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GeneralAnd the winner is ........ Jolyon Ralph!
4th Dec 2019 17:02 UTCRoy Starkey 🌟 Manager
I am delighted to announce that the winner of this year's Marsh Award for Mineralogy is Mindat Founder Jolyon Ralph. Many congratulations Jolyon, I am sure that the entire Mindat community will wish to join me in saying that you are indeed a worthy recipient of the award.
The nomination submitted by myself, and supported by Dr Malcolm Southwood and Dr David Green reads as follows:-
Jolyon is nominated for his unique contribution to facilitating global collaboration in the creation and maintenance of an online mineralogical database https://www.mindat.org/ , online ‘virtual community’ and indispensable reference source for mineralogy.
See also https://www.mindat.org/a/history for a brief history of Mindat.
Introduction
Mindat.org is the world’s leading authority on minerals and their localities, deposits, and mines worldwide.
See also https://www.mindat.org/a/history for a brief history of Mindat.
Introduction
Mindat.org is the world’s leading authority on minerals and their localities, deposits, and mines worldwide.
Mindat.org’s mission is to advance the world’s understanding of minerals. Mindat.org has been collecting, organising, and sharing mineral information since October 2000. It is arguably an essential resource used daily throughout education, academia, and industry.
An international team of 50 expert managers work to ensure accuracy. As a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, mindat.org relies on support from both companies and individuals. Mindat.org is the primary outreach project of the Hudson Institute of Mineralogy
Education
The mindat.org database is a key resource for education about rocks and minerals and their importance to society. Powerful search tools allow both beginners and experts to find answers, consult experts, and delve deeper into a growing archive of educational articles, downloadable books and magazines, a comprehensive mineral and mining glossary - all being updated every day.
Mindat.org provides a platform to promote awareness about geology, mineralogy, and mining and those sciences and industries that are intrinsically linked to them.
The Mindat Database
The mindat.org database contains information on minerals and the localities they are found at. This information is entered by an army of volunteers worldwide and then verified by a team of experts.
Background
Jolyon's love of minerals started at the age of six on a family trip to Cornwall, England. On a beach he picked up a pebble with a quartz crystal inside. This started a life-long passion for minerals.
1993 to 2000 - Before mindat.org was a website, it was a personal computer database project that Jolyon had written from scratch using the C++ programming language. It ran as a DOS application and also as an application on Jolyon's preferred Commodore Amiga computer.
In 1997 Jolyon got a new job which left him little time to work on Mindat, and it mostly lay neglected until the middle of 2000 when he finally started development of the web-hosted version.
The website, with full ability for community-contributed content to be added and managed, was launched in October 2000 after 2-3 weeks of evenings working on the site. Incidentally this was the year before Wikipedia was launched!
On 10th October 2000 mindat.org was first announced to the world on Usenet (which was the way things were done back in those days), in the group sci.geo.mineralogy. By 2001, the website was well established and popular, with photos and data being uploaded by members and the familiar mindat.org menu bar.
Mindat.org started promoting at mineral shows in the UK in 2004, but in early 2005 disaster struck - the hard disk in the mindat.org server failed, and additionally the backups had failed for two weeks. This resulted in the purchase of a dedicated server with dual processors, dual hard disks, and 2Gb of ram. More reliable but also very expensive!
Jolyon travelled to the Munich Mineral Show in October 2005, and to the Tucson Show in 2006 - an opportunity to meet US collectors, dealers and many mindat managers for the first time. Thereafter, travel to international shows increased and so did contact development, sponsorship and raising awareness of the Mindat mission.
In 2006 the site offered the first ‘Mindat Books’, offering free download PDF versions of mineral books. Another innovation - the Mindat Catalogue was launched in 2008 offering a free collection cataloguing tool for all earth science collections.
In 2011 Jolyon Ralph was awarded the Mineralogical Society of America Distinguished Public Service medal for his work in founding and developing mindat.org.
Up until 2013 Jolyon had been working part-time on mindat.org (usually in the evening and at weekends) and doing contract work for a local company as his day job. During 2013 it became quite clear that this was not sustainable and finally, in September 2013 he decided to dedicate his energies to mindat.org full-time.
During 2013 Jolyon and co-founder Ida announced their aim to give away ownership of mindat.org so that it could be set up as a not-for-profit foundation to protect the long-term future of the site. A fundraising campaign was started and the battle to raise sufficient funds to develop and operate the site continues today. Associated Mindat ventures have included global conferences, overseas trips (adventures), development of the mindat software to make it compatible with today’s portable devices – tablets, smartphones and so on.
Looking back from where we are today it is hard to imagine a world without Mindat.org. It has earned a place on every mineralogist’s computer and smartphone, and dare I say it, in their hearts too!
I learned today that Erin Delventhal had also nominated Jolyon - so thank you for your support too.
The Award Ceremony
The award ceremony will take place in the Flett Theatre at the Natural History Museum, London from 14.30-16.30 on the afternoon of Friday 13th December. There will be a celebrity lecture by Prof Ian Crawford, vice-president of the Royal Astronomical Society: 'The Future Exploration of the Moon' followed by a small reception.
The event is open to all and is free of charge, but you do need to book a place.
You can download a registration form here -
You can learn more about the Marsh Awards in this Mindat article
I shall be travelling down from the Midlands to London to attend the ceremony and hope that as many Mindat supporters as possible will be able to join me - see you there! If you are planning on going please PM me or email me if you have my address and maybe we can all meet up in the Mineral Gallery and get lunch in the cafe.
4th Dec 2019 18:56 UTCJeff Weissman Expert
4th Dec 2019 19:26 UTCJohn Sobolewski Expert
4th Dec 2019 19:24 UTCRalph S Bottrill 🌟 Manager
4th Dec 2019 19:24 UTCDonald B Peck Expert
Don
4th Dec 2019 19:29 UTCRui Nunes 🌟 Expert
4th Dec 2019 19:55 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager
4th Dec 2019 20:22 UTCDavid Carter 🌟 Expert
4th Dec 2019 20:30 UTCFrank K. Mazdab 🌟 Manager
4th Dec 2019 20:51 UTCPaul Brandes 🌟 Manager
Congrats Jolyon!
I had to laugh though that the awards ceremony will be held on Friday, the 13th. ;-)
4th Dec 2019 21:04 UTCChester S. Lemanski, Jr.
Sincerest congratulations! This is a well-deserved honor. Little did you know in 2000 that you and Mindat would have come so far so fast. May the Mindat mission continue far into the future for all to enjoy because of an idea that you made into a reality!!
4th Dec 2019 21:20 UTCHarjo Neutkens Manager
4th Dec 2019 21:59 UTCErin Delventhal Manager
To add to Roy's words above, here is the body of my nomination:
Jolyon Ralph has transformed the world of mineralogy by founding and developing the mineralogy database website mindat.org.
Mindat.org began in 1993 as a simple program created by Jolyon Ralph in order to document his personal mineral collection. The program saw several iterations before its launch as a website in October 2000 – the year prior to the launch of Wikipedia.
Mindat has become an essential resource within the mineral world, acting as the leading source of information regarding minerals and their localities. The site encompasses over 5 million pages detailing information on mineral species, rocks, localities, photographs, glossary entries, and more. Users range from amateurs to professionals. The website saw over 4 million unique visitors and over 33 million page views in 2018.
The mindat forum has allowed for a community of users to come together and explore the world of mineralogy together – amateurs are connected to experts, collectors to academia, etc., allowing for a more comprehensive learning experience for all involved.
Sections of the website specifically dedicated to educational articles and other resources have made mindat an invaluable tool for educators. For example, regarding education pertaining to a younger demographic (ages 8-16), the article “Minerals of Minecraft,” authored by Jolyon Ralph, has been viewed nearly 2 million times.
The scientific applications of the mindat database have become increasingly significant in recent years. Of particular note is usage of the database in large-scale data mining research projects such as the Mineral Evolution Project, where mindat data regarding mineral occurences is being used to reconstruct the development of mineral species throughout Earth history.
Mindat.org is a dynamic database, and under the guidance of Jolyon Ralph, it continues to change and adapt to provide new tools for the exploration and understanding of mineralogy and geology. The impact of Jolyon Ralph’s work is monumental now, and will only grow with time.
Mindat.org began in 1993 as a simple program created by Jolyon Ralph in order to document his personal mineral collection. The program saw several iterations before its launch as a website in October 2000 – the year prior to the launch of Wikipedia.
Mindat has become an essential resource within the mineral world, acting as the leading source of information regarding minerals and their localities. The site encompasses over 5 million pages detailing information on mineral species, rocks, localities, photographs, glossary entries, and more. Users range from amateurs to professionals. The website saw over 4 million unique visitors and over 33 million page views in 2018.
The mindat forum has allowed for a community of users to come together and explore the world of mineralogy together – amateurs are connected to experts, collectors to academia, etc., allowing for a more comprehensive learning experience for all involved.
Sections of the website specifically dedicated to educational articles and other resources have made mindat an invaluable tool for educators. For example, regarding education pertaining to a younger demographic (ages 8-16), the article “Minerals of Minecraft,” authored by Jolyon Ralph, has been viewed nearly 2 million times.
The scientific applications of the mindat database have become increasingly significant in recent years. Of particular note is usage of the database in large-scale data mining research projects such as the Mineral Evolution Project, where mindat data regarding mineral occurences is being used to reconstruct the development of mineral species throughout Earth history.
Mindat.org is a dynamic database, and under the guidance of Jolyon Ralph, it continues to change and adapt to provide new tools for the exploration and understanding of mineralogy and geology. The impact of Jolyon Ralph’s work is monumental now, and will only grow with time.
Congratulations, Jolyon!
4th Dec 2019 22:53 UTCAntonios Karatosios
4th Dec 2019 23:39 UTCJerry Cone 🌟 Expert
5th Dec 2019 00:30 UTCEd Clopton 🌟 Expert
5th Dec 2019 00:57 UTCJohannes Swarts
Mindat is my first go-to website for all things mineralogical. A wonderful resource!
Thank you very much!
Hans
5th Dec 2019 01:59 UTCSteve Stuart Expert
5th Dec 2019 09:54 UTCAntonio Borrelli Expert
5th Dec 2019 09:58 UTCKeith Compton 🌟 Manager
No surprise really.
Well deserved.
5th Dec 2019 10:44 UTCAchille Sorlini
5th Dec 2019 11:12 UTCChris Rayburn
5th Dec 2019 13:48 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager
5th Dec 2019 14:50 UTCcascaillou
Congratulations to Joylon as well as to the rest of the team that has been keeping mindat running!
5th Dec 2019 17:12 UTCScott Rider
5th Dec 2019 17:40 UTCKevin Conroy Manager
5th Dec 2019 17:51 UTCNick Gilly
5th Dec 2019 23:26 UTCPaul De Bondt Manager
5th Dec 2019 23:51 UTCJim Spann Manager
6th Dec 2019 00:28 UTCDebbie Woolf Manager
6th Dec 2019 02:05 UTCAndrew Debnam 🌟
congrats, you had a vision, took the time and the risk to see it through. A great acknowledgement for such an endeavour.
6th Dec 2019 08:28 UTCUwe Ludwig
Great to read that. Congratulation also from me.
6th Dec 2019 09:21 UTCSteve Rust Manager
7th Dec 2019 19:15 UTCRonnie Van Dommelen 🌟 Manager
11th Dec 2019 16:16 UTCRoy Starkey 🌟 Manager
I look forward to meeting up with some of you on Friday - it is not yet too late to book a place - but do it now!
Cheers
Roy
11th Dec 2019 20:53 UTCKnut Eldjarn 🌟 Manager
Cheers
Knut
11th Dec 2019 23:29 UTCShundricka Love
15th Dec 2019 16:18 UTCRiccardo Modanesi
Riccardo.
Mindat.org is an outreach project of the Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
Copyright © mindat.org and the Hudson Institute of Mineralogy 1993-2024, except where stated. Most political location boundaries are © OpenStreetMap contributors. Mindat.org relies on the contributions of thousands of members and supporters. Founded in 2000 by Jolyon Ralph.
Privacy Policy - Terms & Conditions - Contact Us / DMCA issues - Report a bug/vulnerability Current server date and time: April 26, 2024 05:20:56
Copyright © mindat.org and the Hudson Institute of Mineralogy 1993-2024, except where stated. Most political location boundaries are © OpenStreetMap contributors. Mindat.org relies on the contributions of thousands of members and supporters. Founded in 2000 by Jolyon Ralph.
Privacy Policy - Terms & Conditions - Contact Us / DMCA issues - Report a bug/vulnerability Current server date and time: April 26, 2024 05:20:56