Mineral Cup is an all-volunteer effort with help from around the world. Our volunteers are in Canada (British Columbia), the United States (Arizona, California, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa), Germany, Australia (Tasmania), and the United Kingdom.

Here’s the team behind this year’s efforts!

Mineral Cup 2023 Volunteers

  • Mika McKinnon, admin. While usually a strong campaigner for any mineral with a Lick or Do Not Lick component, this year she mostly frantically fixed snippets of broken code, recruited volunteers, managed email, edited blurbs, and cursed that match timing directly coincided with toddler nap. Find her on Bluesky and occasionally other places.

  • Susie Leopol, aka blastylavagrrrl, social media moderator and Facebook/Instagram Lead. Zircon was her first vote in 2017, and it remains her favourite today. Writing nice blurbs about Zircon’s archenemies for the semifinals was her least favourite part of this year! Find her on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Instagram.

  • Ryan Hamel, social media moderator, technical troubleshooting and mindat Lead. He was particularly thrilled by the Barbieheimer/Oppenbarbie match. You can find him as mrhameljr.

  • Owen Missen, social media moderator and LinkedIn lead. Owen tracks the element diversity in Mineral Cup over time, and was particularly delighted by how far Stibnite progressed in this year’s cup. Find him on xTwitter and Bluesky.

  • Vicky Veritas, social media moderator. Still glowing from Fluorite’s win in 2022, she can be found on Mastodon and Bluesky sharing lots of geology, rocks, and mineral posts.

  • Maria Gorick, social media moderator. While a big fan of the inagural 2017 Mineral Cup champion Olivine, she’s excited for the day Zircon is crowned champion after a 4.4 billion year wait. Find her on Bluesky or Mastodon.

  • Kerstin Neuhaus, social media moderator. After Fluorite’s 2022 win, she’s looking for a new favourite Mineral. Find her on xTwitter, Bluesky, or Mastodon.

  • Justin Bank, aka clock, team communications. He’s particularly delighted by Calcite’s reign of terror and by the first-round elimination of both not-really-minerals that make it into the Cup on an IMA technicality. Find him on Discord as one of the administrators on the Geology server.

  • Senna Nightshade, aka moonflower, bracket graphics. A particularly fan of Sodalite in past years, she was cheering for Rhodochrosite this year and hoping that Alexandrite makes an appearance during future competitions. Find them on Bluesky.

  • Adriana Heimann-Rios, bracket graphics. Her current favourite mineral is emerald, the striking green variety of beryl. Find her on xTwitter and check out her research.

  • Rachael Taylor, match highlights. While particularly fond of Calcite, Malachite, Flourite, and Atacamite, she loves the Cup for constantly introducing her to new minerals to love. Find her on Bluesky or Mastodon

  • Bill Minarik, match highlights. He’s already starting his campaign for Sapphirine in 2024. Find him on Mastodon.

  • Jo Scheffler, social media monitoring. a perpetual Zircon fangirl, she’s excited to branch out to a new mineral next year. Find her on Bluesky, Mastodon, and xTwitter.

  • Anna Radke, social media monitoring. She’s excited for a reprieve from Team Anything But Zircon next year. Find her on xTwitter, Bluesky, and Tumblr.

    Additional moderation, ideas, writing, and support from Amanda, Hernán, Julia, parv, Emily, Tyler, Sam, Phoebe, Dan, Mary, Mohtasim, Corgis, HMSBeagle, Alex, Mineral Data, uwuw, Sazria, Sora, Liz, Dimitri, Jay, and Dorien.