US Will Revisit Trump-Era Decision For Alaska Rainforest

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The federal government announced plans Friday to “repeal or replace” a decision by the Trump administration last fall to lift restrictions on logging and road building in a southeast Alaska rainforest that provides habitat for wolves, bears and salmon.

Conservationists cheered the announcement as a positive step. Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy criticized it and vowed to use “every tool available to push back.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plans were announced on a federal regulatory site with little detail. They were described as consistent with a January executive order from President Joe Biden that called for reviewing agency actions during the Trump administration that could be at odds with Biden’s environmental priorities. The U.S. Forest Service falls under the Agriculture Department.

The Tongass National Forest is the country’s largest national forest. In a statement, Matt Herrick, an Agriculture Department spokesperson, said the Trump administration decision “did not align with the overwhelming majority of public opinion across the country and among Alaskans.”

“Future decisions about the role of the Tongass National Forest should continue to reflect the best interests of Alaskans and the country as a whole,” Herrick said.

The statement did not outline the next steps the Agriculture Department would take to repeal or replace the Trump administration decision.

The Agriculture Department last October decided to exempt the Tongass from the so-called roadless rule, which prohibited road construction and timber harvests with limited exceptions. The roadless rule, dating to 2001, has long been the subject of litigation.

In 2018, Alaska under then-Gov. Bill Walker, an independent, asked the federal government to consider an exemption. Dunleavy supported the request, as have members of Alaska’s Republican congressional delegation.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska’s senior senator, said the Trump administration, through the Forest Service and Agriculture Department, “put considerable work and effort into the final rule and now the Biden administration is literally throwing it all away.”

“We need to end this ‘yo-yo effect’ as the lives of Alaskans who live and work in the Tongass are upended every time we have a new President. This has to end,” she said in a statement.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan called the decision “misguided,” and U.S. Rep Don Young said it was “yet another nail in the coffin for economic opportunity” in southeast Alaska. The region, heavily reliant on tourism, was hard-hit by the pandemic last year.

The congressional delegation, in a statement, said the exemption is needed “to restore balance in federal management on the Tongass.” Sullivan has said the roadless rule is a hindrance to activities such as mineral development, building energy projects and connecting communities.

The Biden administration earlier this month suspended oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, following a January lease sale that drew a tepid response. A law passed by Congress in 2017 called for two lease sales to be held.

But U.S. government attorneys also have defended a decision made during the Trump administration to approve a major oil project on Alaska’s North Slope that Alaska political leaders have supported.

The Agriculture Department in its decision about the Tongass National Forest last fall concluded that a policy change for the forest could be made “without major adverse impacts to the recreation, tourism and fishing industries, while providing benefits to the timber and mining industries, increasing opportunities for community infrastructure, and eliminating unnecessary regulations.”

More than 9 million of the Tongass’ roughly 16.7 million acres are considered roadless areas, according to a federal environmental review last year. The majority of the Tongass is in a natural condition, and the forest is one of the largest relatively intact temperate rainforests in the world, the review said.

Meredith Trainor, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, said those who supported keeping the roadless rule provisions in place for the Tongass “heartily encourage the administration to put this thing to bed by repealing the Trump rule once and for all.”

Josh Hicks, senior campaign manager with The Wilderness Society, in a statement said forests are “highly effective at sequestering carbon and, if left standing, are one of the strongest natural solutions to combating the climate crisis.”

Travel Rebound: 2 Million People Go Through US Airports

DALLAS (AP) — The airline industry’s recovery from the pandemic passed a milestone as more than 2 million people streamed through U.S. airport security checkpoints on Friday for the first time since early March 2020.

The Transportation Security Administration announced Saturday that 2.03 million travelers were screened at airport checkpoints on Friday. It was the first time in 15 months that the number of security screenings has surpassed 2 million in a single day.

Airline bookings have been picking up since around February, as more Americans were vaccinated against COVID-19 and – at least within the United States – travel restrictions such as mandatory quarantines began to ease.

The recovery is not complete. Friday’s crowds were only 74% of the volume compared to the same day in 2019. However, the 2.03 million figure was 1.5 million more travelers than the same day last year, according to the TSA.

The 2-million mark represents quite a turnaround for the travel industry, which was hammered by the pandemic. There were days in April 2020 when fewer than 100,000 people boarded planes in the U.S., and the CEO of Boeing predicted that at least one major U.S. airline would go bankrupt.

Most of the airlines are still losing money. Southwest eked out a narrow first-quarter profit thanks to its share of $64 billion in federal pandemic relief to the industry, and others are expected to follow suit later this year.

The fear of large-scale furloughs has lifted. United Airlines, which lost $7 billion and threatened to furlough 13,000 workers last fall, told employees this week that their jobs are secure even when the federal money runs out in October.

That’s because airlines like United are upbeat about salvaging the peak summer vacation season. International travel and business trips are still deeply depressed, but domestic leisure travel is roughly back to pre-pandemic levels, airline officials say.

The airlines are recalling employees from voluntary leave and planning to hire small numbers of pilots and other workers later this year.

Hotel operators say they too have seen bookings improve as vaccination rates rise.

Mike Gathright, a senior vice president at Hilton, said the company’s hotels were 93% full over the Memorial Day weekend. He said the company is “very optimistic” about leisure travel over the summer and a pickup in business travel this fall.

“The vaccine distribution, the relaxed travel restrictions, consumer confidence — all of that is driving occupancy and improvement in our business,” Gathright said.

Prior to the pandemic, TSA screened on average 2 million to 2.5 million travelers per day. The lowest screening volume during the pandemic was on April 13, 2020, when just 87,534 individuals were screened at airport security checkpoints.

By the middle of last month, TSA’s average daily volume for screenings was approximately 65% of pre-pandemic levels.

As the summer travel season approaches, TSA is advising passengers to arrive at the airport with sufficient time to accommodate increased screening time as traveler volumes are expected to approach and in some cases exceed pre-pandemic levels at certain airports.

By DAVID KOENIG

Europe Tells Tourists: Welcome Back!

PARIS (AP) — Europe is opening up to Americans and other visitors after more than a year of COVID-induced restrictions, in hope of luring back tourists — and their dollars — to the continent’s trattorias, vistas and cultural treasures. But travelers will need patience to figure out who’s allowed into which country, how and when.

As the European Union’s doors reopen one by one to the outside world for the first time since March 2020, tourists will discover a patchwork of systems instead of a single border-free leisure zone, because national governments have resisted surrendering control over their frontiers amid the pandemic. And post-Brexit Britain is going its own way altogether.

Meanwhile, the welcoming mood isn’t always mutual. U.S. borders, for example, remain largely closed to non-Americans.

Here’s a look at current entry rules in some popular European tourist destinations. One caveat: While these are the regulations as written by governments, travelers may meet hiccups as airlines or railway officials try to make sense of them.

FRANCE

If you’re vaccinated, come to France. But only if you got one of the four EU-approved vaccines: Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson. That works for Americans — as long as they can produce official proof of vaccination — but not for large swaths of the world like China and Russia where other vaccines are used.

France’s borders officially reopened Wednesday. Vaccinated visitors from outside Europe and a few “green” countries will still be asked for a negative PCR test no older than 72 hours, or a negative antigen test of no more than 48 hours. Unvaccinated children will be allowed in with vaccinated adults, but will have to show a negative test from age 11.

Tourists are banned from 16 countries wrestling with virus surges and worrisome variants that are on a red list that includes India, South Africa and Brazil.

Non-vaccinated visitors from “orange list” countries — including the U.S. and Britain — can’t come for tourism either, only for specific, imperative reasons.

ITALY

Americans — the second-biggest group of foreign tourists to Italy — have been welcome since mid-May. However, they need to self-isolate upon arrival for 10 days unless they arrive on so-called “COVID-tested flights.” That means passengers are tested before and after the flight and must fill out documents about their whereabouts to facilitate contact tracing if required.

“COVID-tested” flights from the U.S. started in December and have also been operating since May from Canada, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.

Italy also started allowing tourists from Britain and Israel last month, meaning they no longer need an “essential” reason to visit and don’t have to self-isolate, providing they present proof of a negative COVID test taken no more than 48 hours prior to arrival.

The same rules apply to travelers from EU countries and those on “COVID-tested” flights from the U.S., Canada, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.

GREECE

Tourism-reliant Greece started opening to American travelers back in April, and now visitors from China, Britain and 20 other countries are also allowed to visit for nonessential travel.

All must provide a vaccination certificate or a negative PCR test and fill in a passenger locator form on their plans in Greece. This directive expires on June 14, but could be extended.

Athens long pressed for a common EU approach, but didn’t wait for one to materialize. On June 1, Greece, Germany and five other bloc members introduced a COVID certificate system for travelers, weeks ahead of the July 1 rollout of the program across the 27-nation bloc.

SPAIN

Spain kicked off its summer tourism season Monday by welcoming vaccinated visitors from the U.S. and most countries, as well as European visitors who can prove they are not infected.

Americans and most other non-Europeans need an official vaccine certificate by a health authority. Spain accepts those who were inoculated with the four EU-approved vaccines as well two Chinese vaccines authorized by the World Health Organization — as long as visitors are fully vaccinated at least two weeks before the trip.

Arrivals from Brazil, South Africa and India are banned at the moment because of high infection rates there, and non-vaccinated Americans and many other non-EU nationalities cannot come to Spain for tourism for now.

But there are exemptions for countries considered at low risk, such as citizens from Britain, who can arrive without any health documents at all. EU citizens need to provide proof of vaccination, a certificate showing they recently recovered from COVID-19, or a negative antigen or PCR test taken within 48 hours of arrival.

BRITAIN

There are few, if any, American tourists in the U.K. at present. Britain has a traffic-light system for assessing countries by risk, and the U.S. along with most European nations is on the “amber” list, meaning everyone arriving has to self-isolate at home or in the place they are staying for 10 days.

U.K. and U.S. airlines and airport operators are pushing for a travel corridor to allow tourism to resume, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to raise the issue when he meets President Joe Biden at a G-7 summit in England this week.

Meanwhile, anyone traveling between Britain and continental Europe, be warned: In addition to the isolation requirement for those arriving or returning to U.K. shores, rising concern about the delta variant of the virus has prompted some other countries to introduce special restrictions for those arriving from Britain.

EUROPEAN UNION

The 27-nation EU has no unified COVID tourism or border policy, but has been working for months on a joint digital travel certificate for those vaccinated, freshly tested, or recently recovered from the virus. EU lawmakers endorsed the plan Wednesday.

The free certificates, which will contain a QR code with advanced security features, will allow people to move between European countries without having to quarantine or undergo extra coronavirus tests upon arrival.

Several EU countries have already begun using the system, including Spain, Germany, Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Poland. The rest are expected to start using it July 1.

It’s mainly meant for EU citizens but Americans and others can obtain the certificate too — if they can convince authorities in an EU country they’re entering that they qualify for one. And the lack of an official U.S. vaccination certification system may complicate matters.

State Of Yucatán Continues To Recover Its Air And Maritime Connectivity

MÉRIDA, Yucatán — Yucatán’s Tourism Minister, Michelle Fridman Hirsch, announced this week that the Economic and Tourism Recovery Plan of the State of Yucatán — specifically, the reestablishment airport and cruise port connectivity — has been proactive, showing concrete results with the return of 100% of U.S. flights and now the return of more cruise ships.

“Connectivity is one of the fundamental pillars of the tourist recovery of Yucatán and, therefore, hand in hand with the airlines, cruise ships, [airports operator] ASUR and our naval port, we are working hard to recover the routes we had before the pandemic and, of course, expand the offer and thus be able to reach new and better markets, increasing the number of visitors to Yucatán,” said Fridman Hirsch.

This past Saturday, June 5, saw one of most important air hubs in the world, Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), connected with Mérida International Airport (MID) with the arrival of American Airlines Flight 3925, carrying 62 passengers.

American’s weekly service, a 2-hour, 40-minute flight aboard a 76-seat Embraer 175 aircraft, will operate every Saturday with an arrival time in Mérida of 1:39 p.m. and departure for Dallas at 2:25 p.m. until August 14 of this year, giving a total of 11 roundtrip flights.

American Airlines’ Director of Operations for Mexico, Central America, Colombia and Ecuador, José María Giraldo, said “American Airlines is proud to start these new routes to Dallas-Fort Worth, our main connection center, which will allow Yucatecans to connect with more than 180 destinations in the United States and 57 destinations around the world.”

Continuing with the reopening of Yucatán state, Carnival Cruise Line announced that on July 26 one of its ships will arrive at Puerto Progreso as part of the restart of operations in the North American and Caribbean region after a 16-month freeze on activity due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The cruise company confirmed that the Yucatecan port is one of the destinations included in its first itineraries.

It is expected that most of the passengers traveling on cruise ships under this new modality will be vaccinated and those who are not, due to age or for other reasons, will be guaranteed their safety during the crossing and the visit to the ports of call.

Governor Vila Dosal previously communicated that a large number of national and international companies, including airlines, shipping firms and receptive operators, have adopted the Certificate of Good Sanitary Practices Yucatán, as a measure to prevent and control contagions by Covid-19. This will contribute to a safe arrival of passengers, which aids the economic development of local communities while guaranteeing the health security of the population.

France Reopens Borders To American Tourists, Others

PARIS (AP) — After “a very bad year,” Paris tour operator Marc Vernhet sees a ray of light with the promised return of tourists from the United States and elsewhere who are welcome in France as of Wednesday if they have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.

His agency, 2CVParisTour.com, is starting to get bookings again from Americans for its sightseeing tours conducted in quirky, bug-eyed Citroen cars. June is still very lean, but July is looking better, Vernhet said as France took the first steps toward rebuilding its position as a top destination for foreign tourists.

Before the pandemic, Vernhet ran three or four tours of the capital per day. The work dried up when France locked down, and he’s only doing around three tours per week now, nearly exclusively for French visitors. Vernhet hailed the reopening of France’s borders for vaccinated tourists as “excellent news” but said it is going to take a few more weeks for business to pick up and that “I’m not expecting to work correctly before mid-July.”

“We’ve been waiting for this for months and months,” he said.

To be allowed in for tourism, Americans and other visitors from most countries outside of Europe will need to show that they have been fully inoculated against the coronavirus with vaccines approved by the European Union’s medicines agency.

France’s acceptance of only the Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) vaccines means tourism isn’t immediately coming back from the lucrative markets of China and Russia, which use vaccines not approved by the European Medicines Agency.

Without one of the those four vaccines, most non-EU visitors will still need to prove that they have a compelling reason to visit France and must quarantine on arrival.

But European visitors and those from a handful of low-risk countries are being welcomed back with open arms, even if they are not vaccinated. These so-called “green” countries include Japan, South Korea and Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, Lebanon and Israel. All EU countries as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland are also “green.” Vaccinated tourists from these countries can waltz right in; the unvaccinated need a recent negative test.

“Treat yourself, reserve now,” France’s tourism minister, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, said in a video message Wednesday.

“We want to hear Dutch, German, English, Italian, Spanish being spoken everywhere in the country,” he said. “We miss it. We miss you.”

As well as reopening to tourists, France from Wednesday also allowed restaurants and cafes to resume indoor service and for people to work out in gyms, its latest reopening steps as vaccinations make headway after 110,000 COVID-related deaths.

For 16 countries deemed high-risk, because they are battling coronavirus surges and worrisome variants, France remains off-limits as a tourist destination, even for would-be travelers who are vaccinated.

These so-called “red” countries include India and some of its neighbors, Brazil and some of its neighbors, as well as Chili, Bahrain, South Africa and Turkey.

Would-be tourists from so-called “orange” countries — which includes most of the rest of the world outside Europe, including the United States and Britain — still need a recent negative PCR or antigen test as well as proof of vaccination.

If unvaccinated, or inoculated with jabs not approved in Europe, would-be visitors from orange countries are not allowed to enter France unless they have a compelling professional or other reason. Sightseeing isn’t one of them.

Fifteen months after he last took American tourists on one of his Paris walking tours, guide and blogger Richard Nahem now has two bookings for July.

“People definitely want to come back,” said the former New Yorker, who’s been living in the capital since 2005.

To The Beach! Spain Opens Borders To Tourists, Cruise Ships

PALMA DE MALLORCA, Spain (AP) — Spain jump-started its summer tourism season on Monday by welcoming vaccinated visitors from most countries as well as European tourists who can prove they are not infected with coronavirus. It also reopened its ports to cruise ships.

The move opened borders for the first tourists from the United States and other countries outside of the European Union since those travelers were banned in March last year, when the pandemic hit global travel.

Matthew Eisenberg, a 22-year-old student, excitedly stepped out of Madrid airport, ready to enjoy the Spanish capital along with two more American friends.

“We came to Spain the first day we could, because we are very excited to travel here,” Eisenberg said, showing a certificate for the two Moderna vaccine jabs he received in February and March.

But Spain is still banning nonessential travelers from Brazil, India and South Africa, where virus variants have been been a major source of concern.

Visitors need proof they were fully vaccinated at least 14 days before the trip or that they overcame a COVID-19 infection in the past six months. The certificates can be in Spanish, English, French or German — or their equivalent translations in Spanish, the government order said.

The vaccines accepted are those approved by Europe’s drug regulator — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson — as well as two Chinese vaccines authorized by the World Health Organization, Sinopharm and Sinovac.

The same documents will be valid for visitors from the European Union until the bloc fully rolls out its “Digital Green Certificate” as expected on July 1. Spain on Monday joined seven other EU countries already implementing the scheme.

Alfredo González, an official in charge of digital health and innovation at Spain’s Health Ministry, said the certificate is not a passport but a document that eases mobility across Europe.

“Without the certificate, travel will be possible, but the entry in every country will be slower and controls such as quarantines could apply,” said González, adding that all airports had established fast-track channels with technology able to confirm the digital certificates issued by other EU countries.

Beginning Monday, non-vaccinated travelers from the EU’s 27 countries could also enter Spain with the negative results of recent coronavirus antigen tests, which are cheaper and faster than PCR tests.

The Spanish government hopes to welcome 14.5 million to 15.5 million visitors between July and September. That’s about 40% of the tourists in the same period of 2019 but twice as many as last summer, when only EU visitors could enter Spain.

Tourism is a major industry that in 2019 accounted for over 12% of Spain’s GDP.

In a setback, many British tourists who love Southern Europe’s beaches aren’t expected in large numbers yet because they must quarantine upon their return to the U.K.

Still, Manchester resident Randolph Sweeting said his holiday on the Spanish island of Mallorca was worth the mandatory self-isolation when he gets home.

“I was here twice last year and when I went home I had to quarantine on my own for two weeks. So it’s not a problem for me, I’ve done it before,” the 68-year-old said at the Palma de Mallorca airport.

Belén Sanmartín, director of the Melià Calvià Beach Hotel in Mallorca, said that the U.K. government’s decision to keep Spain in its list of higher-risk territories was hard to understand in the Balearic Islands, where the infection rate is lower than in Britain.

“It has been a big disappointment, because we were ready to receive visitors from the British market,” Sanmartín said, adding that bookings in her hotel were slowly picking up, thanks to Spanish mainlanders and German and French tourists.

In another move to boost tourism, Spanish ports opened to cruise ships on Monday, nearly 15 months after they were banned.

After peaking in late January at nearly 900 new cases per 100,000 residents in 14 days, Spain’s coronavirus contagion indicator has dropped to 115 per 100,000. Still, its descent has slowed down in the past days as new infections spread among unvaccinated groups.

Spain has counted over 80,000 COVID-19 deaths in the pandemic.

By FRANCISCO UBILLA and ALICIA LEÓN
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Alicia León and Aritz Parra contributed to this report from Madrid.

American Museum of Natural History - New Halls Of Gems And Minerals Opening June 12

One of the most popular and beloved spaces in New York City’s museums will return to public view, completely redesigned and reinstalled, with the opening of the Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History on Saturday, June 12, 2021. A sparkling showcase for the Museum’s world-renowned collection and an engaging guide to current scientific knowledge about our dynamic planet, the 11,000-square-foot Halls are among the first major new cultural facilities to welcome the public as New York reopens.

Reservations to visit the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals are included in a General Admission ticket and are available now at ticketing.amnh.org.

Telling the fascinating story of how minerals in their vast diversity formed on Earth, and how humans have used them throughout the millennia for personal adornment, tools, and technology, the Halls’ exhibits include:

a gallery of dazzling gems, including the legendary 563-carat Star of India sapphire, gem crystals like the 632-carat Patricia Emerald, and the Organdie necklace designed by Michelle Ong for Carnet with 110 carats of diamonds, fabulous new specimens, many never before exhibited, including a pair of towering, sparkling amethyst geodes that are among the world’s largest on display, a slice of a 35-million-year-old metasequoia (a petrified dawn redwood from the Cascade Mountains), the 9-pound almandine Subway Garnet discovered under Manhattan’s 35th Street in 1885, and the Tarugo, a 3-foot-tall cranberry-red elbaite tourmaline that is one of the most fantastic mineral crystal clusters ever found, interactive displays illustrating the science of mineralogy, including a dynamic periodic table of chemical elements that demonstrates how they “make minerals” and a temporary exhibition space, the Melissa and Keith Meister Gallery, opening with Beautiful Creatures, an unprecedented display of exquisite historic and contemporary jewelry inspired by animals.

“New Yorkers and visitors have long embraced these Halls as one of the City’s treasures,” said Ellen V. Futter, President of the American Museum of Natural History. “Now, with this complete redesign made possible by Allison and Roberto Mignone, the Halls are more spectacular than ever and an even greater resource for learning about the processes that shape our changing planet and make it so endlessly fascinating. With their opening, we not only mark a signal moment in the resurgence of New York City and the renewal of its cultural life, but also, we hope, accelerate its pace.”

The Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals are named in honor of Allison and Roberto Mignone, longtime Museum supporters and volunteers. Roberto Mignone is a Museum Trustee and Allison Mignone is vice chair of the Museum’s Campaign.

“When you enter the Halls, you truly feel as if you’ve walked into the world’s jewelry box,” said Allison Mignone. “Currently, my favorite spot is standing in front of the 10-ton rock from the Sterling Mine in New Jersey. Although it may look unassuming in daylight, when it is washed in ultraviolet light, the rock’s brilliance comes alive with fluorescence of red and green. It is simply breathtaking and has to be experienced in person. These Halls, and others in the Museum, take science off the page of textbooks and into the real-life experience of countless families and students. Now more than ever, equal access to education is paramount. We look forward to the time when large numbers of students and school groups and their teachers can visit. Halls like these are crucial and tangible tools that communicate the incredible variety of minerals on Earth and how they relate to our lives.”

Organized by Curator George E. Harlow of the Museum’s Division of Physical Sciences, the exhibits in the redesigned Halls are arranged to show the geological conditions and processes by which minerals form: igneous, pegmatitic, metamorphic, hydrothermal, and weathering. As part of this construct, the Halls introduce a concept that has developed over the past 15 years: mineral evolution.
Recognizing that there were no minerals at all for hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, the concept explains how our planet today came to host more than 5,500 mineral species. The process
began with supernovae infusing the universe with more and heavier elements, which could combine into minerals. The formation of planets enabled the differentiation of these minerals, mostly in the form of molten rocks heading to the surface. On Earth, as new mineral-forming environments arose—with the accumulation of liquid water, for example, or the introduction of free oxygen into the atmosphere by the first photosynthetic organisms—minerals diversified in color, texture, and chemical composition. Organisms contain, produce, and use minerals, and new minerals have formed because of life. (See release on science in the Halls).

“When I started at the Museum, there were probably 2,500 minerals described—and now there are more than 5,500 minerals,” said George E. Harlow. “The enhanced Halls present up-to-date science, which has progressed significantly. I look forward to seeing visitors delight in remarkable gems and mineral specimens from across the globe and our own backyard, like those in the Minerals of New York City display featuring specimens from all five boroughs.”

Hall Highlights

The redesigned Halls feature more than 5,000 specimens sourced from 98 countries. In addition to those already mentioned, highlights include:

the Singing Stone, a massive block of vibrant blue azurite and green malachite from Arizona, first exhibited at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, a wall-sized panel of fluorescent rock that glows in shades of orange and green, sourced from Sterling Hill in New Jersey, The Butterfly of Peace, 240 colored diamonds arranged in a symmetrical pattern of similar cuts and colors, A nearly 600-pound specimen of topaz from Minas Gerais, Brazil, one of the largest single crystals of topaz in any museum in the world, an ancient block of orbicular granite featuring unusual ball-shaped, concentric clusters of crystals, sourced from one of Earth’s oldest enduring landmasses, the 2.7-billion-year-old Yilgarn Craton in Western Australia, a spectacular specimen of yellow fluorite retrieved from the Moscona Mine in the Asturias region of northwest Spain, which grew after hot water dissolved layers of limestone, and later deposited cubic crystals coated with glistening pyrite in the empty space, An iridescent block of labradorite from Madagascar made up of large crystals of feldspar that display vibrant colors with changes in viewing angle, a slab of amphibolite rock containing huge almandine garnet crystals that formed more than a billion years ago, sourced from Gore Mountain in upstate New York, a 1.8-billion-year-old assemblage of dravite tourmaline crystals, one of the oldest pieces in the Hall, which formed in present-day Western Australia in solid metamorphic rock, a massive 5-foot beryl crystal section, sourced from the Bumpus Quarry in Albany, Maine, And weighing almost half a ton and showcasing hundreds of swordlike crystals, one of the largest stibnite specimens on public display, from southeastern China.

Beautiful Creatures Inaugural Temporary Exhibition

Inaugurating the Melissa and Keith Meister Gallery, the first temporary exhibition space to be built in any of the Museum’s permanent halls, the American Museum of Natural History will present Beautiful Creatures. Featuring some of the world’s most spectacular jewelry pieces inspired by animal forms and curated by jewelry historian Marion Fasel, the special exhibition will be on view through September 19, 2021.

“Beautiful Creatures is devoted to animal-themed jewelry designs created over the last 150 years,” said Marion Fasel. “The timeframe dovetails with the founding of the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1869. The institution, and others like it around the world, actively contributed to the public’s exposure to and subsequent fascination with the study and science of nature, particularly the animal kingdom, which, in all its remarkable diversity, has promised never to lose its allure for jewelry designers.”

Beautiful Creatures features imaginative designs by the world’s great jewelry houses and artisans—from Cartier’s iconic panthers to Suzanne Belperron’s butterflies. The sparkling pieces on view range in date from the mid-19th century to the present, and displays are arranged into categories of animals observed in the air, water, and on land.

Exhibition Design

The Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals are designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates with Davis Brody Bond as architects, together with the American Museum of Natural History’s award-winning Exhibition Department under the direction of Lauri Halderman, vice president for exhibition.

The three main divisions of the layout are the Gem Hall, the Mineral Hall, and the Melissa and Keith Meister Gallery for temporary exhibitions.

The Gem Hall includes a display of nearly 2,500 objects from the Museum’s world-class collection. These include precious stones, carvings, and stunning jewelry from around the world that were fashioned from naturally beautiful minerals. In addition to the Star of India sapphire and the Patricia Emerald, specimens on view will include the DeLong Star Ruby, a 100.3-carat ruby from Myanmar; the Brazilian Princess topaz, a 221-facet, 9.5-pound pale blue topaz that once was the largest cut gem in the world; and a carving of the Buddhist deity Guan Yin in lavender jadeite jade, fashioned in China during the late Qing Dynasty.

The Mineral Hall comprises four sections. Mineral Forming Environments is a set of cases in the center of the Hall dedicated to the environments and processes by which minerals form: igneous, pegmatitic, metamorphic, hydrothermal, and weathering. At the four corners, Mineral Fundamentals displays explore the overarching concepts of mineral sciences, from the evolution and diversification of minerals to their properties to how they have been used by humans from prehistory to the present day. Systematic Classification, a display running along the west wall, contains 659 specimens that represent the chemical classification system that scientists use to organize Earth’s more than 5,500 mineral species, as well as an interactive feature in which visitors can explore forming minerals from the elements on the periodic table. Finally, Minerals & Light, a room off the east wall, explores the optical properties of minerals—their interaction with light.

A state-of-the-art lighting system throughout the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals uses cool and warm full-spectrum LEDs and sophisticated lighting controls to reveal the rich texture, color, and reflectivity of the diverse objects on display. Additionally, short- and long-wave ultraviolet sources are utilized to reveal spectacular colors in fluorescent minerals. Visitors will experience the incredible depth and character of the striking minerals and gems on display in a calibrated, dramatic lighting environment.

Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Museum

The Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals are a striking complement to the David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth and the Hayden Planetarium in the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites. The Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth illustrates the evolution and inner workings of our dynamic planet with outstanding geological specimens and interactive exhibits on climate change, while the Hayden Planetarium educates visitors about the latest space science through immersive presentations such as the Museum’s new Space Show Worlds Beyond Earth. The Ross Hall of Meteorites—which is immediately adjacent to the Mignone Halls—explores the origins of our solar system through holdings from the Museum’s world-class collection of meteorites, which contain some of the same minerals found on Earth.

This public-facing work is overseen by curators in the Museum’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, who conduct research in the fields of mineralogy, petrology, geochemistry, ocean science, and cosmochemistry. The department’s researchers study topics that include the origin of rubies in Southeast Asia; using corals to reveal how our oceans have changed over time; and the mineral and chemical origins of solar systems, especially the transformation of interstellar minerals into the building blocks of asteroids, comets, and meteorites. The collections of the department, which include minerals, gems, and meteorites, hold more than 120,000 specimens.

The Mignone Halls as an Educational Resource

The Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals were designed as a vital educational resource for school and camp groups, educators, and students of all ages to learn about the mineral sciences of our dynamic planet. The reimagined Halls were developed to support New York State and national science education standards, which recognize the interdisciplinary nature of evidence-based science. The scientific disciplines manifested through the Halls’ exhibits include Earth science (with content about how minerals form), chemistry (including an interactive periodic table), physics (with a gallery focused on the interaction between light and minerals), biology (including the role of life in the evolution and abundance of Earth’s minerals), and more.

These Halls play a key role in the Museum’s Masters of Art in Teaching program, which prepares highly qualified Earth science teachers for grades 7-12 in high-needs schools in New York City and throughout the State. Participants in the program utilize the Halls throughout their instruction and tap into them as a tangible teaching tool for their own classes upon graduation. Since the MAT program launched in 2012, 124 MAT teachers have graduated from the program and teach thousands of students each year.

American Museum of Natural History 150th Anniversary Projects

The Halls have undergone renovation as part of the physical and programmatic initiatives undertaken in conjunction with the 150th anniversary celebration of the Museum, which was founded in 1869.

These projects will culminate in the opening of the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, a major new facility, designed by Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang. The spectacular, 230,000-square-foot facility will add exhibition galleries, state-of-the-art classrooms, an immersive theater, and a redesigned library, revealing more of the Museum’s scientific collections and linking 10 Museum buildings to improve visitor flow throughout the campus. The section of the Museum that houses the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals had long been a cul-de-sac, which could be entered and exited only from the south end. In the future, the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals will be linked to the new Gilder Center, allowing visitors to circulate with greater ease and less congestion.

The Museum is also working on updating, restoring, and conserving the Northwest Coast Hall to enrich the interpretation of the gallery’s exhibits.