The Mineralogy collection is placed in the Department of Earth and  Ocean Science  and preserves one of the richest and oldest group of minerals present today in Sicily, such as the beautiful finds from the Sicilian chalky-sulphur series, the  various and rare minerals collections from all continents, the rocks and decorative stone materials, the fine Sicilian amber, the precious and ancient instruments of study and research.

In the new setting the logic of the exhibition is to travel  within the material,  trying to give a new meaning and a new collocation to each piece: from the micro to the macro, from meteorites coming from a very distant space-time to the atom, to allow the visitor to codify the structures of “life” and “system” of each piece, within an overall vision of nature’s law government and its principles.

The collection was born from the initial core of the Airoldi donation, arrived to the University Institute of Geology in the mid 19th century, including geological and paleontological finds. This collection is based on collecting criteria, rather than on a naturalistic scientific interest. The other collections in the Institute are mainly attributable to the Miocene period and to the chalky-sulphur regional context.

For example, some meteorites samples, which are specimens of great scientific interest, are excluded from this category. In addition to these ones, there are samples coming from southern Italy, collected by scientists belonging to the Institute.