Fehér Béla (szerk.): Az ásványok vonzásában, Tanulmányok a 60 éves Szakáll Sándor tiszteletére (Miskolc, 2014)
Kecskeméti Tibor: A 60 éves Szakáll Sándor köszöntése
12 T Kecskeméti the Herman Ottó Museum was provided with a new building, where the mineralogical collection also was placed in special storage cabinets. His work that was outlined in these few lines involved many travels/trips, field-works, negotiations, organizations, workshops. He got confidence and support, and Vilma Széky- Fux still stood by him to give him professional advice. Not only did he fulfil his official duties, but he did not forget about his family either. At home, his wife, the university professor Ildikó, and their two beautiful daughters, Virág and Gyöngy, awaited him. He took part in household chores: he helped his wife and dealt with his daughters. This balanced and harmonious family background gave him safety and peace, in which he could work on his collection development and research program. His love of minerals made him promote them together with the rich information related to them at all levels and ways. He claimed that a mineral show and exhibition would be the best solution to do it. I asked him whether he knows what a big burden it will be on his shoulders, but he replied that he got approval and support from those concerned. He managed to achieve his goal on the first Saturday of March in 1983, when the first mineral show was organised in the main hall of the University of Heavy Industry in Miskolc. Meanwhile, the show turned into the International Mineral Festival, which was organised for the 32nd times this year. A year later, the Herman Ottó Museum was able to open its first mineralogical exhibition - the “Minerals of Hungary” - in the Papszer Street. Its expanded version opened in 1995 and was an international success for more than 13 years. His scientific achievement is so colourful that we would like to highlight only three of them here: The foundation of the Topographia Mineralogica Hungáriáé book series in 1993. His young colleagues mainly from Miskolc, but from some other research places of Hungary also, could publish their scientific achievements. In its nine volumes, internationally significant publications can be read. The Minerals of the Carpathians fundamental work. The nearly 500 page long book introduces the minerals of the Carpathians with lots of colour pictures and illustrations. The Prague Granit published it in English in corporation with Hungarian, Romanian, Slovakian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech mineralogists’ authorship. Sándor Szakáll was the manager of the entire international scientific enterprise. This book became the favourite for all those mineralogists who are interested in the minerals of the Carpathians. The Mineralogy of Székelyland was published in 2010 in Miercurea-Ciuc. The idea of writing an essential book that displays the rich and peculiar minerals of the region came up during the period he spent in Transylvania. He worked together with the local scientists to process the region’s marvellous mineral world with modem techniques and tools/devi- ces. His curiosity to unravel the secret of minerals is out of the ordinary. Mostly, he is interested in the structure of minerals, the forms and reasons of their associations, furthermore, their genetic aspects. His researches on the chemical compositions are internationally known. In the recent years, he introduced (with his Hungarian and foreign research partners) five new and unknown minerals into the mineralogical literature (kochsándorite, cha- bazite-Mg, klajite, ammoniomagnesiovoltaite and parádsasvárite). Apart from these, does he have any free time? Of course, he has! He organises mineral collecting trips and camps, he creates offprints, photo collection, and databases. He does
