It has now been almost a year since the Commission on Mineralogy was founded at the International Congress at La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland.

The newsletter is to keep members up-to-date on what is presently happening in the Working Groups, and it is also a request to the Chairs of the Working Groups to send an update on their activities and progress within their group.

UIS Mineralogy Conservation Working Group

The entire working group, and other people interested in the aims of this group, can now correspond by sending e-mails to: uis-conservation@axell.org.

This working group is presently:

• Preparing a list of caves of mineralogical interest that should be protected/preserved. Please send your list of caves to this conservation e-mail address.
• Trying to help set up Cave Conservation Laws within various countries. If your country is in need of help, write to this E-mail address. Please pass this E-mail address to those in your country who are involved in cave conservation - they should also be members of this group.
• Trying to prevent the sale of speleothems worldwide.

Speleothem Repository/Library

A repository for speleothems/cave mineral samples has been set up with Paolo Forti at the Italian Institute of Speleology in Bologna, Italy. Already one speleothem collection (Carol Hill's) has been sent to Paolo. This repository will allow researchers working on "generic" studies to have access to speleothems without collecting them, thus preserving the resource. Also, Paolo Forti is in the process of setting up a Speleological Library at the Italian Institute, and cave mineralogy articles from your country should be sent to him.

Bibliography Working Group

Katalin is trying to compile a complete (as possible) Bibliography of cave mineralogy articles from around the world. If you know of articles from your country NOT included in Cave Minerals of the World, 2nd edition, please send these references to Katalin.

Minerals Ontogeny Working Group

Members: Vladimir Maltsev, Bogdan Onac, Will White, Paolo Forti, Silvia Frisca, Andrea Borsato, Carol Hill. This group is presently actively working on trying to integrate Western and Russian ideas of cave mineralogy. One of its goals is to publish our results in an entire issue of Journal of Caves and Karst.

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