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Calvo, Miguel (1955- )

Miguel Calvo Rebollar was born in Soria, Spain, on July 5, 1955, the first of four children born to Rufina Rebollar and Cipriano Calvo, an industrial worker. Since childhood he had a great interest in chemistry, and also in mineral collecting, although the possibility of obtaining mineral specimens in such a small provincial town in Spain in the 1960s was very limited.

Miguel attended Zaragoza University on a scholarship, receiving his degree in Chemistry in 1978. That same year, he enrolled in the PhD program of the Biochemistry Department in the same university, and soon after he married Emilia Sevillano. They have one daughter, Guiomar Calvo, born in 1985. (Today she is a geologist with a PhD in renewable energies and energy efficiency.)

In Spain at that time, postgraduate grants were funded only intermittently. Needing to supplement their income, Miguel and his wife set up a small mineral dealership called Minersoria. Their shop was located in Zaragoza (on José Anselmo Clavé street). They also sold minerals at some of the larger Spanish mineral shows, including Madrid, Bilbao and Barcelona, and at a Sunday collectors' street market in San Francisco Square in Zaragoza.

After obtaining his PhD in 1983, and after closing the mineral business, Miguel worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut de Recherches Scientifiques sur le Cancer, Villejuif (Paris) and took a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Food Sciences of Zaragoza University. In 1986 he was made an Associate Professor, and in 2006 was promoted to Full Professor ("Catedrático") in Food Chemistry and Biochemistry. Today he is the principal investigator of a research group working on the biochemistry of milk proteins.

Miguel's first mineral collection grew significantly after 1985, especially following visits to the Munich, Paris and Torino mineral shows; it was a systematic collection, including specimens from localities worldwide. In 1995 he initiated an exhaustive study of the topographical mineralogy of Spain, and changed the focus of his collection accordingly, selling the non-Spanish specimens to the Museum of Natural Sciences of Álava.

In 1993 he was a founding member and the first president of the Asociación Mineralógica Aragonesa. In 1995, with the creation of the journal Revista de Minerales, he served as its scientific editor, a position he still holds. He has published articles on the mineralogy of Spanish localities in Revista de Minerales (which has an English version, Mineral-Up), as well as in the Mineralogical Record, Lapis, Le Regne Mineral, Bocamina, Boletín Geológico y Minero, and others.

His study of Spanish topographical mineralogy has resulted in the 9-volume work Minerales y Minas de España (hardcover), with a total of 5,045 pages, the largest topographical mineralogy ever published in any country. The first three volumes were published between 2003 and 2006 by the Natural Sciences Museum of Álava and the remaining six between 2009 and 2018 by the Gómez Pardo Foundation – School of Mining Engineers of Madrid. He is also the author of other books on topographical mineralogy, including Minerales de Aragón, a heavily illustrated, large-format book published in 2008.

Miguel's current collection of Spanish minerals has been an important reference for the preparation of Minerales y Minas de España, as it includes many specimens of rare species from new localities, analyzed by Scanning Electron Microscopy, Energy-Dispersive Spectrometry and X-ray Diffraction Analysis. The collection consists of around 10,000 specimens, including as many rare minerals as possible from all of the localities in Spain, and also those more common species found as fine specimens. Many specimens have been self-collected from outcrops and abandoned mines, as well as from active mines during authorized visits. He has collected at classic locations such as Reocín and Riotinto (now closed) and at the Eugui quarry, where he obtained fine specimens of dolomite (with a variety of crystalline morphologies, inclusions, etc.) and also good specimens of rare minerals such as fluellite, bariosincosite and mcguinessite. Other specimens were obtained via exchanges, as gifts, and by purchase.

The specimens, from micromount to small cabinet size, are stored in 249 drawer-size compartmented trays in a specially constructed cabinet. The most common species can fill several trays. As an example, quartz occupies 20 trays and aragonite (very common in Spanish dolostone, shales, claystones and evaporites) fills 9 trays, but for pyrostilpnite there is only one tiny micromount. Many specimens, several hundred, have been figured in books and magazines and carry a special illustrated specimen label with a reference to the publication.

Miguel is also a collector of old books on mineralogy and mining, and is the author of the book Bibliografía Fundamental de la Antigua Mineralogía y Minería Españolas, published in 1999. He also has a large collection of old photographs, memorabilia, documents and stock certificates from Spanish mines and mining companies.

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Citation format for this entry:
WILSON, Wendell E. 2022
Mineralogical Record
Biographical Archive, at www.mineralogicalrecord.com

Collecting at Delfina, 1996

38 x 60 mm

Collection cabinets

One of the quartz drawers (41 x 32 cm)

Another drawer (also 41 x 32 cm)

Drawer label, 63 x 80 mm (the encircled “F” indicates that the specimen has been figured in a publication)

A specimen with its various associated labels going back to Lazard Cahn