What will happen in the future if new minerals are found in Wales? Will they need to go to a Museum in England as we will no longer have curators to look after them in Wales?

We are putting plans in place to ensure that all our geology collections continue to be preserved and cared for to the highest professional standards. From April, enquiries about our collections will be directed to Conservation.

What is the evidence on which the closure of the Mineralogy and Petrology Department is based and how does it fit into our Strategy?

Due to the cut to our budget, we have had to take the difficult decision to close the geology section in its current format. This will regrettably result in the reduction of roles. This saving will enable us to redeploy resources to maintain and strengthen the Botany and Zoology sections.

[The following three questions were answered with one response]

Who will audit and curate the rocks and minerals displayed at Big Pit and Swansea, and the geology collections that are on loan to these sites for Learning purposes?

Who will provide support for Learning, Big Pit, Amgueddfa Lechi and the Waterfront Museum on topics relating to rocks and minerals (such as volcanoes, formation of coal, slate and industrial minerals in Wales) going forward?

Who can we refer the public to for enquiries about our rock and mineral collections? Or Welsh gold, minerals or rocks? Will the public still be able to access these collections?

We are putting plans in place to ensure that all our geology collections continue to be preserved and cared for to the highest professional standards across all of our sites. Enquiries about our collections will be directed to Conservation and we hope to continue to provide the public with access to the collections through our programme wherever possible.

Support for sites and the Learning department on rocks and minerals will be evaluated over time.

How can we ensure the long-term survival of the popular Evolution of Wales and Natural World displays without expert curatorial input to these displays?

We are retaining two palaeontology posts to support continued care and conservation of our precious collection of Welsh fossils and help safeguard the future of our prized natural sciences galleries.