Electromagnetic wave resistivity methods in Measurement-While-Drilling and Logging-While-Drilling applications, or simply MWD/LWD, are now approaching their fourth decade of practice. Th ey are instrumental in anisotropy determination, dip angle analysis, bed boundary detection, fl uid identifi cation, and so on, and are important to economic analysis, stimulation planning, geosteering, unconventional resources and numerous exploration challenges.

Recent advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracture stimulation technology have opened up vast new oil and natural gas sources in shale formations. Shale gas production in the United States was 5 trillion cubic feet (141 billion m3) in 2010, representing 23% of the total U.S. dry-gas production (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2012). Shale gas production has also been established in Canada, and initial exploration drilling has begun outside North America, most notably in Poland, Argentina, India, Australia, and China.

Thousands of scholars, professors, teachers, and members of the public have visited the Geological Museum Valentí Masachs, associated with the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) (Polytechnic University of Catalonia) in Manresa (Barcelona, Catalonia), since it opened in June 1980.

The Geological Museum Valentí Masachs is an unconventional one, very different from the traditional type. The exhibition’s main aim is to visualize the connection between human activity and planet Earth (Fig. 1).

During the ten years since the publication of the second edition of these tables many new minerals have been described. About fifty of these are included in the third edition of Part II,  which was published in 1933, while nearly seventy are of more recent date. The author has attempted to include in supplementary tables in this printing all the new minerals which seem to be well established and adequately described as to their optical properties. Unfortunately it has not been feasible to incorporate them in the main tables, but this is probably not a very serious difficulty since the minerals in question are all very rare.

It is hoped that the use of colored paper for the table (III) classifying minerals on the basis of their color (and pleochroism) in thin section will make it easy to find the various tables quickly and conveniently

In the preparation of this printing the author has benefited by the assistance and encouragement of his wife, Florence S. Winchell.