~ Early Web Links ~

John Betts built this extraordinary virtual mineral museum housing over 194,000 photographs of more than 63,000 mineral specimens from localities around the world. With educational articles, field trip guides, searchable species and locality databases, and decades of collector expertise behind it, this site is an unparalleled reference for mineralogy enthusiasts.

An educational exhibit from the Illinois State Museum exploring the famous Mazon Creek fossil deposits, dating back approximately 300 million years to the Pennsylvanian Period. Visitors can browse detailed pages on specific plant and animal fossils found in ironstone concretions, learn about the Francis Creek Shale formation, and explore why this site is considered one of the world's premier Lagerstätten.

The Maryland Geological Society is a non-profit club founded in 1991 for amateur and professional fossil and mineral collectors, open to all who share a passion for the geological sciences. Visitors will find meeting schedules, field trip announcements, fossil and mineral FAQs, a gallery, newsletter archives, and articles by contributing scientists.

Lavajunkie.com is a passionate photography gallery dedicated to the volcanic activity of Kilauea, Hawaii, featuring extensive collections of lava flows entering the Pacific Ocean, surface flows, dawn shots, and even images purportedly showing the Hawaiian volcano goddess Pele. With over 20 gallery pages organized into themed collections, this site captures the raw spectacle of new earth being formed and invites armchair lava junkies to experience the phenomenon from their screens.

The Fluorescent Mineral Society hosts a stunning photo gallery showcasing minerals from around the world photographed under shortwave, midwave, and longwave ultraviolet light, revealing their glowing colors. Specimens from famous localities like the Franklin and Sterling Hill mines in New Jersey, Tsumeb in Namibia, and sites across China, Australia, and Brazil are featured with photographer credits and mineral identification.

Hosted at Michigan Tech since 1993, this long-running volcano resource page gathers links to educational tools, research sites, webcams, and cultural materials related to volcanology from around the world. Visitors can explore active volcano feeds, teaching resources, folklore, myths, and interviews with real volcanologists, making it a rich hub for both students and enthusiasts.

Le Regne Mineral is a French bimonthly mineralogy magazine covering earth sciences with original articles and high-quality mineral photography from renowned specialists like Jeff Scovil and Mick Cooper. Considered one of the top five mineral magazines in the world after four years of publication, it serves collectors, rockhounds, and mineralogy enthusiasts across Europe and beyond.

Created by Ronnie Van Dommelen, this site is a dedicated reference guide to the mineralogy of Nova Scotia, Canada, covering locality information, mineral images, species studies, and reported minerals from the region. It highlights the province's world-class zeolites, Bay of Fundy collecting sites, and serves as an online resource for mineral enthusiasts and collectors worldwide.

Webmineral.com presents a comprehensive reference for the Nickel-Strunz Classification System, organizing over 4,700 minerals into a systematic hierarchy of chemical groups from elements and sulfides to silicates and organic compounds. Built with contributions from mineralogist James A. Ferraiolo whose classification scholarship dates to 1982, the site serves as a serious database tool for mineralogists, crystallographers, and collectors.

Mineral Webzine is a bilingual French-English non-commercial online magazine dedicated to rockhounds, mineral collectors, and geology enthusiasts. Featuring photographs of specimens like garnet, wulfenite, and cinnabar contributed by collectors from Canada and France, it serves as a reference for mineralogy, crystallography, and gemology.