Come celebrate the 2023 MMGM Heritage Award winner
Cliff E. Trebilcock
at the New England Mineral Associations’
New England Mineral Conference
Friday May 19th
Grand Summit Hotel, Newry, Maine
Pre-register now
AND take advantage of early bird pricing
until May 1, 2023.
If you want to attend the banquet and awards ceremony on Friday, May 19 – you must pre-register HERE to get tickets.
Cliff in a smoky quartz pocket he found in 1996 on North Percy Peak, Stratford, NH picture taken in 2010
Prominent Maine field collector Clifford E. Trebilcock was selected to receive the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum’s 2023 Heritage Award, which is a lifetime achievement award recognizing those who have made significant contributions to Maine mineralogy. Trebilcock is a lifelong field collector who is especially respected for his intimate knowledge of the Topsham pegmatite field. Trebilcock was a youngster when he made a find of world-class uraninite crystals at a feldspar quarry now known as the Trebilcock quarry. Uraninite is a principal ore of uranium, the basis of the nuclear industry. Uraninite typically occurs as crude black crystals with a dull luster that are rare world-wide. In contrast, Trebilcock quarry uraninite crystals are sharp, lustrous and can reach 2 centimeters on an edge. The find remained a family secret until the horde of crystals was sold in the late 1970s.
Trebilcock has collected extensively in the Topsham quarries and also in the better-known pegmatites of western Maine. He has enjoyed particular success at the rose quartz crystal locality in Newry and the Deer Hill amethyst occurrence in Stow.
Trebilcock specimens now grace many private and institutional collections.
Uraninite crystals found in 1995
Deer Hill Amethyst found in 1968
Cliff at Trebilcock Uraninite locality Topsham, Me. in 2009.
Maine Mineral & Gem Museum’s Mineralogical Heritage Awards celebrate the sciences and arts integral to its mission: to communicate the significance of minerals in our lives, our planet and beyond.
Honorees demonstrate advanced application and significant influence on the science and processes inherent in mining, collecting, crafting, educating and communicating the relevance of minerals.
MMGM Heritage Awards will be presented during the the New England Mineral Conference (NEMC).
The Maine Mineral and Gem Museum (MMGM) is opening an hour early for NEMC registrants to visit and will have entry to the Museum open through 3:00 pm. You can visit the museum more than once, but will need a ticket for each entry; each NEMC registrant will receive the reduced rate for each visit. Targeted times for visits are on Friday from 9:00 am – 4:00 p and Sunday from 11:00 am – 5:00 pm. You may purchase and attend both a Sunday Museum visit and a Mine Collecting Field Trip option and do them in either order. Time frames for attending will remain as 9:00 am – 4:00 pm for mine field trip and 11 am – 4:00 p (last entry is a 4:00 pm) for the museum.
Tickets may be purchased through pre-registration, or you may present your NEMC 2023 registration badge for a reduced entry fee on site at the Museum for entry.
Museum memberships begin as low as $35 annually; all membership levels gain you unlimited entries (and more) to the museum.
