May 22, 2010
Very soon now, if you have the good sense to be a Mineralogical Record subscriber, the postperson will be delivering your copy of the May-June 2010 issue. There you will get an extensive scoop on the new and extraordinary demantoid garnets from Madagascar, and on much else as well from that remote and singular island; and you will find my report on the 2010 Tucson Show. Meanwhile, as a sort of mood-setter before that trusty postperson arrives, here's a look at a miscellany of interesting things—
On the Web
Of the several distinct tin-mining regions of the Bolivian Andes, by far the most productive of world-class cassiterite specimens has always been the Viloco district near the town of Araca, Loayza Province, La Paz Department. Viloco cassiterite generally appears as tight clusters of highly lustrous, equant crystals from 1 to 3 cm individually; the crystals are nearly always twinned on {011}, and multiple twins of the cyclic style are common. Typically, Viloco cassiterite looks dark brown to black at first glance, but don't let its very high refractive index fool you: the true color is a rich honey-brown to yellow, and strong backlighting shows the crystals to be translucent or even transparent. Viloco cassiterite specimens have trickled out sporadically since the 1920s but marketed lots are never large, and the best pieces, being so dignified-looking and beautiful, are never cheap. Thus the April 28 update on Brian and Brett Kosnar's Mineral Classics site (www.minclassics.com) is a pleasant surprise, for here are 28 very good cassiterite specimens at "keystone" (i.e. half of retail) prices. Although most of the miniature to small-cabinet-size crystal groups show minor damage, they are super-bargains nevertheless for between $40 and $200. Most of the Kosnars' cassiterites are from the Viloco district, but a few hail from Huanuni, Dalence Province, Oruro Department: characteristically, the latter are blacker, and their twinned crystals are more prismatic in habit.
Cassiterite, 4.8 cm, from the Viloco district, Araca, Loayza Province,
La Paz Department, Bolivia. Mineral Classics specimen and photo.
David K. Joyce (www.davidkjoyceminerals.com) has an interesting site always well populated with Canadian minerals, including many from little-known occurrences at remote sites in Canada where David himself has swung a hammer. A recent update features several pages showing newly collected zeolites from the basalt cliffs around Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy—known for excellent specimens of stilbite, natrolite, chabazite, etc., and of gmelinite, in orange-pink, lustrous, discoidal crystals ranking among the world's best examples of this rather uncommon zeolite species. Of special interest in the new lot on David's site are some specimens showing gmelinite pseudomorphs after chabazite on weathered basalt, the pseudocrystals reaching 2 cm individually and matrix specimens reaching 6.5 cm. The replacing gmelinite is salmon-pink and more lustrous than you'd expect; some of the rhombohedral forms are hollow, and thus qualify as gmelinite epimorphs after chabazite. Also offered in these pages are very nice specimens of primary (non-pseudomorphous) gmelinite and chabazite, as well as heulandite, stilbite, analcime, and amethystine quartz—all from vertigenous collecting sites around the Bay of Fundy, where collectors rappel on ropes above waves that heave in towards shore with some of the fastest, hungriest incoming tides in the world.
Gmelinite pseudomorph after chabazite, 4.3 cm, from Five Islands, Nova Scota.
David K. Joyce specimen and photo.
During the final two years of the 20th century, the market saw fairly good supplies of outstanding stibnite/barite specimens from the Murray gold mine near Elko, Elko County, Nevada. Typically these are groups, to large-cabinet size, of lustrous, well-terminated, thin-prismatic stibnite crystals to 30 cm long, sprinkled with sharp, blocky barite crystals to 2.5 cm, these, in turn, solidly coated by drusy quartz for a “sugar cube” effect. Now, Scott Kleine of Great Basin Minerals (www.greatbasinminerals.com) is offering eight fine miniature and small-cabinet-size specimens of stibnite/barite from the Murray mine, wherein the species' relationships are somewhat different from those in the earlier pieces: brilliant stibnite crystal sprays to 3 cm rise from groups of transparent, colorless to pale gray barite crystals on cavity-lining quartz druses. The Murray mine being now closed, this may be your last chance to pick up a fine specimen from this distinctive occurrence in Nevada's Carlin Gold Trend.
Barite and Stibnite, 4.5 cm, from the Murray mine, Elko County, Nevada.
Great Basin Minerals specimen and photo.
The polymetallic orebody of the Xianghualing district, Hunan Province, China, has been exploited for ore since the 10th century A.D., and since the mid-1990s the Xianghualing mine has produced very pale green transparent fluorite specimens in great abundance—you can still see these lovely fluorite groups, sometimes to large-cabinet sizes, at major mineral shows. But Xianghualing fluorite, like that of the nearby Yaogangxian mine, can come with wild extravagances of inclusions and phantoms, such that the simple icy green, modified cubic crystals are just the beginning of what the locality has to offer. A new Chinese internet dealership called MinFans (www.minfans.com) now offers specimens of fluorite from the Xianghualing mine which consist of crystals to 1.5 cm loosely attached in clusters to 11.5 cm; the general color is gray-green but concentric phantoms render the crystals' interiors a sort of opaque yellow-green while outer zones remain quite transparent, in purer green. These crisp, sleek, well-composed clusters of super-sharp cubic crystals make "different"-looking specimens for fluorite fans to enjoy.
Fluorite, 5.5 cm, from the Xianghualing mine, Hunan Province, China.
MinFans specimen and photo.
Do you have a good specimen of anything from Honduras? Well, if you are old enough to have been collecting during the 1960s and 1970s, maybe at that time you picked up one of the modest but nice wire silver specimens which appeared sparingly from the El Mochito mine near San Pedro Sula, Santa Bárbara Department—a skarn-hosted Zn-Pb-Ag deposit near Lake Yojoa in west-central Honduras which is still the largest operating metal mine in Central America. Not for the first time, Khyber Minerals (www.khyberminerals.com) has come up with something surprising: several very good specimens of andradite and of calcite, reportedly taken recently from the El Mochito mine. The calcites are the most intriguing (at least to me), as they are highly varied: there's an 8-cm loose group of translucent, palest yellow, short-prismatic crystals with trigonal terminations and no associated species; there's a 12-cm matrix of quartz and sphalerite crystals with opaque snow-white, equant calcite crystals to 5 cm resting on it; and there's a dramatic 10-cm specimen (shown here) with an 8-cm rosette-shaped aggregate of pale pink, platy calcite crystals on matrix of hedenbergite/quartz/sphalerite. I note in passing that another website, M & W Minerals (www.mwminerals.com) has recently offered a 27-cm specimen showing equant, lustrous, black compound crystals of sphalerite on quartz/andradite/pyrite/hedenbergite matrix, collected in 2001 at the El Mochito mine— perhaps there are a few nice Honduran minerals in all our futures again.
Calcite, 10 cm, from the El Mochito mine, San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
Khyber Minerals specimen and photo.
The town of Oviedo in the Cantabrian Mountains of northern Spain is home to 26-year-old Juan Fernandez Buelga, now finishing up a degree in geology even while running his Spanish Minerals website (www.spanishminerals.com). On this site you can find a selection of fine Spanish pieces, some of them self-collected by Buelga, some from old Spanish collections. I recommend that you visit the site and admire specimens from the north-coastal provinces of Asturias and Cantabria, as well as others from regions of Spain farther south. You will see some familiar things, such as lilac-colored, transparent fluorite crystals on bladed white barite from Berbes and gemmy orange sphalerites from Picos de Europa, but there are less common items as well. For example, Buelga shows off a superb galena from the Pb-Zn mines of Picos de Europa: this is from his own collection and not for sale, but a glowing miniature of translucent lime-green prehnite from the Oficarsa quarry, Carchelejo, Jaén, is for sale (HQLP alert—the prehnite, pictured below, asks only $80, and there's a whole flat of others where this one came from). Entire collections, contemporary suites, and wholesale specimen lots, all from Spain and Portugal, are also available on the Spanish Minerals site.
Galena, 6 cm, from Picos de Europa, Cantabria, Spain.
Juan Fernandez Buelga specimen and photo.
Prehnite with augite, 2.7 cm, from the Oficarsa quarry, Carchelejo, Jaén, Spain.
Juan Fernandez Buelga specimen and photo.
In an earlier report or two I've pointed approvingly to Crystal Treasure (www.crystal-treasure.com), a site devoted exclusively to small, mostly gemmy crystals of many species from Burma (all right, from Myanmar, if you insist on using the name bestowed on the country by the xenophobic junta now in power there). Every time we visit this site we can learn much about strange forms which familiar species might take at prospects in the Mogok Stone Tract where gem materials are sought. Consider, for instance, the bladed, gemmy pink crystals of diaspore and the colorless, transparent, doubly terminated prisms of chrysoberyl (both shown below) now being offered by Crystal Treasure; and further consider the butterscotch-colored crystal of johachidolite also shown here. The type locality of this very rare borate species is in North Korea, but small, anhedral, matrix examples and loose shards from Burma have lately been making it somehow to Western venues. Johachidolite is of some interest to gem cutters, but, so far, of little or none to mineral collectors, as euhedral crystals simply have not appeared. But the very presentable little specimen shown here may portend a change—especially as an exact locality, the Pyan Gyi mine northeast of Mogok, is now being named.
Diaspore, 6.8 and 6.2 mm, from Mong Su, Shan State, Myanmar.
Crystal Treasure specimen and photo.
Chrysoberyl, 1.7 cm, from Le-Oo near Mogok, Mandalay State, Burma.
Crystal Treasure specimen and photo.
Johachidolite, 2.7 cm, from the Pyan Gyi mine near Mogok, Mandalay
State, Burma. Crystal Treasure specimen and photo.
The syndicate of Polish mineral enthusiasts which calls itself Spirifer has grown increasingly prominent lately, on the web and elsewhere (its explorations in Madagascar are well documented in our May-June 2010 issue), and the group does an excellent job of regularly displaying photos from its worldwide adventures on its site, www.spiriferminerals.com. You may now see abundant "tourist" shots from a Spirifer trip to Morocco this past spring, including stops in places such as Mibladen, Sidi Ayed, Imilchil, Taouz, Oumjrane, Bou Azzer, Kerrouchen and more…and then it was back to Poland via ferry and car, the air over Europe having been full, at the time, of volcanic ash from Iceland. A March 2010 find of superlative erythrite specimens at Bou Azzer came just in time for the visiting Spirifer folks to pick up some goodies such as the gorgeous miniature-size piece shown on the site, and shown again here. Fine pictures of fine specimens like that are sprinkled throughout the site's family of Moroccan images of many exotic kinds.
Erythrite, 5.5 cm, from Bou Azzer, Morocco.
Spirifer specimen; G. Bijak photo.
A flat of recently collected vanadinite specimens at Mibladen, Morocco.
J. Gajowniczek photo.
A few online reports ago I mentioned a new site devoted to minerals, classic and contemporary, from Greece: Greekrocks (www.greekrocks.com), founded in 2009 by Christos Spiromitros, a young geologist from Thessaloniki. Well, to quote from the site: "Chris started as a collector of Greek minerals. In a few years he gathered numerous specimens…and decided to sell them. At first he used online auctions (under the name “Greek Minerals”) but he soon decided to start his own mineral business…An internet store [seemed] the best way to approach the public…After making many sales, he decided to take it to the next level and invested his funds and time to build this fine website and web-based business. Of course, he will soon be taking part at most of the major mineral shows." The site is presently rich in good andradites from Seriphos, calcites from Stratoni, epidotes from Kimmeria, and all sorts of colorful items from Laurium, as well as many specimens newly mined in the Madan district of Bulgaria. Chris has good contacts and is an expert field collector, so we would be smart to keep checking on this site frequently.
The Massachusetts dealership called Well-Arranged Molecules (www.wellarrangedmolecules.com) is now showing 47 unusual specimens on a "Holiday Surprises" page. I fear that this means the 2009-2010 holidays, in which case I'm bringing somewhat old news, but so what?—with such sophisticated goodies to look at as szenicsite from the Chilean type locality (three pieces); two superb Mexican pyromorphites; strontianite from Austria; brazilianite from New Hampshire; a wonderful thumbnail of chalcopyrite from French Creek, Pennsylvania; and a pink apophyllite from St. Andreasberg, Harz Mountains, Germany. Most "surprising" of all is a small-miniature specimen of the new species miguelromeroite from the Veta Negra mine, Pampa Larga district, Tierra Amarilla, Chile:
Miguelromeroite, 3 cm, from the Veta Negra mine, Pampa Larga district,
Tierra Amarilla, Chile. Well-Arranged Molecules specimen and photo.
Miguelromeroite is named, of course, for the late-great Mexican collector Miguel Romero. And—rare-species specialists take note—the mineral has just (2009) been described by Dr. Anthony Kampf as an end-member of the sainfeldite-miguelromeroite series of Ca-Mn arsenates, the series also including "villyaellenite" from the Ojuela mine, Durango, Mexico (see our Mexico II special issue, September-October 2003). The single known "villyaellenite" specimen from the Ojuela mine is, in fact, miguelromeroite, while "villyaellenite" from Ste.-Marie-aux-Mines, Alsace, France, the type locality, remains, indeed, villyaellenite.
More and more these days, old collections are being recycled through the efforts of dealers, and often the most exciting things on a website are one-of-a-kind specimens, not uncommonly including great classics, from these former stashes. One such now-being-unburied treasure is the former collection of Martin Lewadny of Winnipeg, who has been into minerals, especially Canadian minerals, since childhood, and who has been selling off his collections every five or ten years or so. Right now, some superb ex-Lewadny thumbnails are being offered on Rob Lavinsky's The Arkenstone site (www.irocks.com). The selection includes several old, hard-to-get Canadian items such as millerite from the Thompson mine, Manitoba; cubanite from Chibougamou, Quebec; pyromorphite from the Society Girl claim, British Columbia; and wire silver from long-extinct Silver Islet, Ontario. To represent his miscellaneous fine worldwide thumbnails I've chosen to show here a stephanite from the San Genaro mine, Huancavelica, Peru, which is far, far better than any stephanites I'd been aware of before from this venerable silver mine (best known for its beautifully crystallized silver and pyrargyrite).
Stephanite, 2.4 cm, from the San Genaro mine, Huancavelica, Peru.
Arkenstone specimen and photo.
And on May 20—just in time for a newsflash here—Rob Lavinsky put up on his site (www.irocks.com) the first lot which he will be selling from the collection of classic north-of-England specimens gathered over a lifetime by Lindsay and Patricia Greenbank of Kendall, England. Mineralogical Record subscribers have already gotten the Big Picture of this collection by reading and going wow over Classic Minerals of Northern England, the 147-page Supplement which we threw in (free, as usual) with the January-February 2010 issue. Having bought the Greenbank collection, Rob funded production of this Supplement because he wanted, as he puts it, "to give back to the hobby" by letting everyone see the pieces all together, before they're sold off individually. The Supplement's text, edited by Wendell Wilson, has several authors (including the present writer), and is very rich in historical data, but of course it's the color photos, mostly by Joe Budd, which make the work such a beauteous thing to behold...and now you can see some of the same photos of some of the same magnificent pieces, and if you're fast you can even buy some of the latter. This first lot which Rob has assembled contains 67 specimens, and he plans to market another 60 or 70 sometime this summer. Prices of the topmost specimens run to five figures (and some are marked "P.O.R."), but a very nice Cumbrian miniature of something rare and special like scheelite, arsenopyrite, brochantite, pyromorphite or alstonite might be had for mid-three figures, and even some of the stunning calcite butterfly twins, fluorites, barites, witherites, etc. have numbers on them which strike me as reasonable, considering the very high quality and all of the well-documented history that we are talking about. At the very least the update is a great pleasure to browse through; and it's much harder to get drool spots on your computer screen than to get them onto the Supplement's pages. Here are three teasers:
Calcite, 5.3 cm, from the Bigrigg mine, Cumbria, England. Ex-Greenbank and Dick Barstow and Ralph Sutcliffe collections.
Arkenstone specimen; Joe Budd photo.
Barite, 6.5 cm, from Frizington, Cumbria, England. Ex-Greenbank collection.
Arkenstone specimen; Joe Budd photo.
Pyrrhotite, 3.4 cm, found in 1990 on the 320-325 level of the Cambokeels mine,
Weardale, Durham, England. Arkenstone specimen; Joe Budd photo.
New Online Museum
New York City mineral dealer John Betts has just completed construction of a new and enormous Online Mineral Museum, accessible at http://www.johnbetts-fineminerals.com/museum.htm. To quote from his press release, "The site contains 62,388 photographs of 30,000+ mineral specimens fully searchable by mineral name, varietal name or locality…Upon entering the museum, visitors may look up mineral specimens in alphabetical listings, click on a country or state, or review minerals based on groups like phosphates, sulfides or pseudomorphs. A separate search page allows searching on all or part spellings of mineral species and/or locality. The database currently has 30,714 mineral specimens representing 1491 valid mineral species from 149 countries…" There are 1498 specimens from the species' respective type localities, 1371 pseudomorphs, 1905 fluorescent specimens shown both in daylight and under ultraviolet illumination, 1031 diamond crystals, and 631 twinned crystals. The Museum will be continually updated, but "none of the minerals are for sale—this is a non-commercial reference site for the benefit of mineral researchers and enthusiasts." Address inquiries to John H. Betts, 215 West 98th St. No. 2F, New York, NY 10025, or e-mail to jhbnyc@aol.com.
Well, maybe that will hold you until Madagascar! (May-June 2010) arrives. I'll be back again in this space sometime during the coming Dog Days; until then, stay cool. |
