This article was originally published by the School of Public Health.by Fid Thompson

By Emily C. NunezThe scent of eucalyptus and tea trees carried on a breeze, and the bizarre charm of long-snouted marsupials were a few of the natural wonders two faculty members and two graduate students from the University of Maryland’s Department of Geology experienced on a recent research trip to Tasmania. But their real focus was a different—and literal—kind of gem. 

By John TuckerThe four small crystals found on the land in County Cork where a farmhouse had been torched a century ago stood out among more typical artifacts. There were no natural deposits of quartz in this rustic hillside near the Irish coastline.University of Maryland anthropologist Stephen Brighton and his students digging 23 inches into the soil in the summer of 2018 had also revealed a foundation with a kitchen and cast-iron pot still attached to a wall, along with buttons, cufflinks, a glass inkwell and a copper alloy candlestick.