Minerals, Metals and Medals

Minerals, Metals and Medals

July 2012

Working with Cambridgeshire Competes, a local partnership of museums and sports centres, the Sedgwick Museum curated a small display with a unique angle on the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, held in London. Using the Museum’s mineralogical collection, the exhibition focused on some of the wide variety of minerals used in the manufacture of sport equipment and the broader use of minerals in the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

On display were the metal ores use to manufacture iron, titanium and aluminium, plus examples of hydrocarbons used to create plastics and carbon fibre. Also on display were the metals used to make the medals, including pieces of gold and silver, and some of the pieces of equipment used in the games, such as a discus, shot put and tennis racquet. The exhibition explored how the museum’s fossil collections link with the town of Wenlock in Shropshire, birthplace of the modern Olympic Games, with examples of fossils from the Silurian Wenlock Limestone and a new piece of artwork by Palaeoartist Bob Nicholls. Banners and photographs of Cambridgeshire Olympic and Paralympic athletes supplied by Cambridgeshire Competes were placed around the Museum.