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talk · Tuesday 22 September · 09:50–⁠10:05 · SAL C

Developing and implementing a relational mineral taxonomy model in EMu for Museums Victoria's mineral collection

Oskar Lindenmayer · Rocks, Minerals, and Metadata: Integrating Earth Sciences into the TDWG Community

Recording time 1:14:31–1:29:52Open on Vimeo ↗

Summaries and key moments are machine-produced. Check the recording for the speaker’s exact words.

The short versionLinking catalogue records to shared, Mindat-populated mineral taxonomy records makes mineral identification data consistent and queryable.

Overview

What this was about

Oskar Lindenmayer described moving Museums Victoria's 57,000-specimen mineral collection (about 2,500 species, 131 type specimens) from classification stored locally in each EMu catalogue record to shared mineral taxonomy records in EMu's taxonomy module. The model adopts IMA hierarchy terms (species, subgroup, group, supergroup, plus other rank/value), keeps Dana class/code for legacy while adding Strunz-Mindat classes, handles solid-solution series such as wolframite via a multi-valued series field outside the hierarchy, and separates ideal formula and ideal elements. Catalogue records were linked to shell taxonomy records holding Mindat IDs before the new fields existed, then populated rapidly via the OpenMindat API, with about 150 non-standard records created manually.

Why it matters. Gives mineral collections a template for relational, standards-aligned classification data in a common CMS, reusing infrastructure built for biological taxonomy.

Key ideas

In the room

  • Previously group and class were stored per catalogue record, producing inconsistencies across records for the same species.
  • New taxonomy records (e.g. vanadinite) are shared by all catalogue records; some fields are mirrored back to the catalogue for querying.
  • IMA 2009 hierarchy terms are used; other rank/value handles non-standard cases and the amphibole supergroup's fourth level.
  • Dana classification has not been updated since 1997, so Strunz-Mindat class/code are recorded alongside it.
  • A multi-valued series field lets a search for 'wolframite' return ferberite, hübnerite and series-level records without the whole wolframite group; series can span groups.
  • EMu cannot render subscripts/superscripts, so a plain-text human-readable formula convention was adopted.
  • Legacy data were copied into a locked field first; shell records with EMu IRN, Mindat ID and name allowed linking before implementation.
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Programme abstract

[Skipped talk] Developing and implementing relational mineral taxonomy model in EMu for Museums Victoria's Mineral Collection

Oskar Lindenmayer

Mineral identification and classification data in Museum’s Victoria’s (MV's) EMu CMS have until recently been stored within individual specimens’ catalogue records and managed as part of a series of shared hierarchical look-up-lists. This is unlike MV's biological taxonomic data, which have made use of a one-to-many relational structure between taxonomy and catalogue records at least since the implementation of EMu in the late 1990’s. Disadvantages of the model previously applied to mineral data include difficulties making changes following nomenclature revisions, an inability to capture incomplete taxonomy (eg. cataloguing specimens only identified to the level of a group or solid solution series), and a limited ability to query the database on mineral properties, chemistry or classification schemes.

I report on the development and implementation of a relational mineral taxonomy model in EMu over 2025-26. This model captures a hierarchy of mineral taxonomy; subgroup, group and supergroup as formlised by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) in 2009, the Dana and Strunz classification systems, ideal chemical formula and elements, and IMA approval status. It also allows use of some existing functionality for zoological taxonomy, capturing the history of identification and linking taxonomy records to publications in which species were described or revised. Data to populate 6,125 taxonomy records for IMA approved mineral species were extracted from Mindat.org via their API. A further 162 taxonomy records for invalid, as yet undescribed, or incompletely classified specimens were created and manually populated. These 6,287 taxonomy records have been linked to the 56,792 catalogue records containing mineral identification data in MV's database.

Submitted to the conference programme before the talk, so the talk itself may differ.