Daniel (Dan) Walter Behnke, 87, of Glenview died January 20, 2020 of Lewy Body Dementia and a stroke. The obituary is here. Dan was an Associate Photographer of both the Mineralogical Record and Rock and Minerals magazines. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Friends of Mineralogy from 1990 to 1993. He served as the Micromount chairman of the Midwest Federation of Mineralogical Societies from 1981 to 1988. At one time, he was an active ESCONI member with a deep interest in photographing microminerals. He served several terms as chairman of the micromount study group of ESCONI. He collected and photographed microminerals for over 30 years. His collection numbers over 14,000 specimens representing in excess of 750 species from localities throughout the world. The picture above is from his presentation at the Copper Country Mineral Retreat in 2009.
His biggest loves were photography, microminerals and book collecting. Dan began collecting & photographing microminerals, developing that technique to a high art. His photographs have illustrated many articles, and Rocks and Minerals journal covers, as well as in The Mineralogical Record and in the Los Angeles County Museum’s Photo Atlas of Minerals. He was an author and lecturer and was inducted into the Micromounters Hall of Fame.
Here are pictures of some of his micromounts.