Certainly, minerals are magnificent examples of the true wonders of nature, capable of showing beautiful colours. There are crystals of different shapes and designs with some other spectacular properties such as fluorescence, magnetism or the ability to produce energy. Overall, minerals can be found at first sight, but some of them are so minuscule that it is difficult to see them. In this case, it is necessary to take dozens of photos of them with effective magnifying glasses.

In this section, a compilation of minerals which is part of the “Juan López Aliaga” collection is represented. Early 2019, it was donated to the Natural History Museum of the Universitat de València by his family. The full compilation is composed of approximately 1400 minerals of great scientific relevance which have an extraordinary crystallographic quality. 400 of them have been photographically recorded using acquisition technique for scientific documentation (Cócera, Honorio. 2014). This technique consists on taking dozens of photos of the same specimen to generate a single high-quality image. The collection, donated entirely by Juan López Aliaga’s family, includes extremely rare specimens. Some of them were originated in historical places where same quality minerals no longer appear. The minerals come from a wide variety of countries, especially Spain, the United States, Mexico and Brazil.

To announce this collection to the world, which is the result of a altruistic donation and which has involved decades of work and a great economic investment by Juan López Aliaga, is undoubtedly one of the main objectives of the museum with respect to the cataloguing, dissemination and popularisation of this type of mineralogical and scientific heritage.