Upcoming Talk at the Maine State Museum Highlights Maine Tourmalines

Augusta, Maine - The Friends of the Maine State Museum continues its 2015 lecture series, “Treasures of Maine’s Natural History at the Maine State Museum” on Wednesday, March 25, 2015 at 6:30 p.m. with a talk about Maine tourmalines by Carl A. Francis, former curator of the Harvard University Mineralogical Museum. The talk is free of charge.

Francis’s illustrated lecture will highlight the history and finds from important tourmaline mines, beginning in 1821 at Mt. Mica in Paris, Maine and continuing through the 1800s and 1900s with Mt. Apatite in Auburn and Dunton quarry in Newry. Francis will also speak about other significant but less well-known localities, which like Mt. Mica, are producing tourmaline specimens today. These include the Berry-Havey quarry on Mt. Apatite in Poland and the Mt. Marie quarry in Paris.

Carl Francis was Harvard University Mineralogical Museum’s curator for 34 years. During his career at Harvard, he received the Carnegie Mineralogical Award for 1992 from the Hillman Foundation of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. He is a Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America and served as chairman of the International Mineralogical Association Commission on Museums.  Francis is currently the curator of the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum, a new museum under development in Bethel.

The Maine State Museum is located in Augusta, Maine at 230 State Street in the State House Complex.  For more information call (207) 287-2301 or visit the museum’s website at www.mainestatemuseum.org.