Fire Opals

The Transantarctic Mountains divide our world’s southernmost continent into East Antarctica and West, ambling for 2,000 miles along barren land between the Ross and Weddell seas. Somewhere in those mountains is a ledge named for the late geologist Arthur Mirsky, who gave part of his 85 years to the close study of the region’s rocks. His memory lives on in that frigid zone. But Mirsky’s Ledge isn’t the only place on Earth where his legend is kept alive. Indeed, his presence also can be felt on the University of Arizona campus. There, thanks to a gift from his and his wife, Patricia’s, estate — along with savvy estate planning from their attorney and coordination with the UA Foundation’s Office of Gift Planning — the Arthur Mirsky Geology Fellowship defrays tuition costs for graduate and undergraduate geosciences students.

Once a geologist for the Atomic Energy Commission, Mirsky came to Tucson in 1953 to earn a master’s degree in geosciences. He later founded the geology department at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, or IUPUI.

But he never lost his connection with Tucson. The rest of his days, Mirsky kept in his possession a fire opal he found in Southern Arizona, on a rancher’s land. Late in life, Mirsky described the opal as his “most treasured specimen.” “I expect that it will still be with me,” he wrote, “when I go to that big outcrop in the sky.”

Now, in the form of the endowed fellowship established through his planned gift, which shines like an unearthed gem, students receive his support. They might be said to have a chance to find their own kind of fire opal, too.

“I expect that it will still be with me when I go to that big outcrop in the sky.” – Arthur Mirsky