Dr. Bruce Cairncross is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Geology at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, and has produced extensive writings on southern African minerals, including a number of articles in the Mineralogical Record. So it’s safe to say that no one knows more than he does about southern African mineralogy and geology. He is also an enthusiastic collector of mineral specimens and a skilled mineral photographer.

In this, his latest work—Minerals & Gemstones of Southern Africa—he has expanded his field of view to cover not just southern African minerals but southern African gemstones as well, with the book’s greater focus still on minerals including hundreds of striking photographs by Cairncross and others.

The soft cover book, 320 pages long (including the index), is indeed as the author states: “an A to Z of minerals and gemstones” of southern Africa.