Mineral Bliss

Bob Conkwright Reflects on his Giant Maryland Corundum

2012-01-20T05:21:00.002Z

Our recent Jan. 6 topic, "An Humongous Maryland Corundum," gleaned more hits than any previous Mineral Bliss post has ever received. How did this specimen get to where Bob Conkwright, Jr. found it back in 1960 amidst the dumps of one of the Devries Quarries, which even then were long defunct? Regardless of whether the piece was actually quarried there, which is open to question, we can be quite certain at least that it formed close by, somewhere near this Henryton Tunnel less than a mile north of Marriottsville.

When we spoke late last December in Bob's office at the Maryland Geological Survey, he referred to this find as "my heritage," and needless to say it had much to do with how and why he went on to make geology his career. Surely Bob has given plenty of consideration to where this amazing specimen came from and how. Here are his thoughts:

There are many references available on corundum digenesis. Looking at page 90, “Geochemical Methods of Prospecting for Non-metallic Minerals”, (Komov, I.L., 1994)*, the author indicates six recognized primary corundum deposits. Corundum is commonly associated with mafic and ultra-mafic rocks (silica-poor), pegmatites (which are typically not silica-poor), and marble (which can be relatively silica-poor). If you look through the various scenarios for corundum formation, a couple of items stand out. Bedrock in the Patapsco Valley has pegmatite and marble, and in places, pegmatites intruding marble. According to the 1928 Carroll County geologic map, the easternmost Henryton pegmatite dike is in contact with Cockeysville marble. The pegmatite/marble associations in the valley are known to include albite, diopside, phlogopite and pyrite, all minerals listed as associated with corundum. Given the size of the crystals, the corundum mass is almost certainly pegmatitic in origin, and the Cockeysville marble could have supplied the necessary silica-poor environment for the reaction to occur. Given the large size of albite and diopside crystals known to exist in these formations, I think it is not unlikely the pegmatites that injected into the marble are a likely source.

I have not found any mapped occurrences in this part of the State where pegmatites intrude silica-poor ultramafics or serpentinites. This has occurred around the Pennsylvania border, and corundum is known to occur in those formations. Red corundum crystals were reported in pegmatite-associated serpentine, which also produced talc, actinolite, chlorite and other silica-poor minerals **. There are soapstone quarries in the Patapsco area, so perhaps there are pegmatite-injected serpentinites that have not yet been identified.

Since the large crystal size would indicate a pegmatite source, but no known pegmatite dikes are injected into these local, silica-poor rocks, I suggest the specimen came from the local marble. This leaves the mystery of the reddish color, known to be derived from trace chromium. I have an idea, which might be a bit lame, but it is the only one I have for now. According to the 1993 Geologic Map of Howard County, John Edwards interprets the Patapsco Valley pegmatites as Silurian in age. The mafic and ultramafic complexes in the region are interpreted by Edwards as older than the pegmatitic injection. Could it be that the injected magma picked up some chromium ions during the intrusive event into the older marbles? Perhaps.

I am certain the corundum mass was loose in dump material, or possibly just in the soil/saprolite layer. Given the hardness of corundum and the rapidity with which calcite and feldspar weather, it is not unreasonable to assume the crystals, if not derived from quarried material, weathered out of the bedrock. There are some parts of the crystal mass which look to me like they have been weathered and polished, which would take a long time to do to corundum. This makes me think the specimen is eroded rather than quarried. With that in mind, maybe there are more!

The more I think about it the more intrigued I am with the possibility that some of the Howard county soapstone bodies may be serpentinite hydrothermally altered by pegmatite injection, similar to those in the MD/PA line area. Although pegmatites have not been mapped near most of these bodies, it is entirely possible they were not observed. For instance, the Henryton pegmatites are clearly seen on the 1928 Carroll County geologic map, but are absent on the 1993 Howard County map, right across the river. Did those dikes really do a dead-stop at the river’s edge? I don’t think so.

Contributed by Bob Conkwright

An Humongous Maryland-Collected Ruby Corundum

2012-01-06T16:59:00.000Z

Weighing 16 pounds, and measuring 8 1/2 inches x 6 inches x 5 inches and pictured above is the most spectacular and amazing Maryland collected mineral specimen of thousands upon which I have gazed. Shortly after a 2009 visit to the Maryland Geological Survey's Baltimore headquarters on St. Paul St. to view its Maryland minerals on display, my friend Jeff Nagy inquired if I'd seen a gigantic Maryland corundum rumored to be there. Absolutely not: To the best of my knowledge, no Maryland-collected corundum specimens were known to exist.

Two and a half years later, Jeff called and invited me to accompany him to the MGS building for a visit with geologist Bob Conkwright, Jr., MGS Program Chief for Coastal and Environmental Geosciences. It turned out that for many years, this amazing specimen had served as a cherished doorstop in Bob's office.

Bob collected it circa 1960 at age eleven in the company of his father while collecting at one of the three long abandoned Devries Quarries in Carroll County. Once mined for feldspar, two of the Devries openings sit adjacent to each other along a bluff overlooking the Patapsco River near Hentryton. Bob explained:

"Start at the Henryton Tunnel and head downstream. The area was not as wooded back then, and there were just piles of dumps. I saw the weathered end of this thing sticking up and kicked it, hurting my toe. After a little digging, I first suspected it was some kind of hexagonal quartz cross-section."

About a week after our visit with Bob, my friend Harold Levey joined me on a short hike heading north up the railroad tracks along the Patapsco from Marriottsville looking across the river for a spot that could be where Bob made his find. Sure enough, about a hundred yards downstream from the Henryton Tunnel, the two openings remained. Although a few pegmatite rocks were visible on the ground, any dumps that may once have existed had long succumbed to fluvial forces and/or been buried with soil as the area has become heavily wooded. Even so, a few pegmatite rocks were visible. Now part of Patapsco State Park, prohibitions against collecting are actively enforced with inordinately costly penalties.

Open to question is whether this amazing piece was actually quarried from one of the openings upon whose quite shallow dumps Bob collected it. Could it have been loose in the soil/ saprolite layer, or even a product of blasting for construction of the Henryton Tunnel near the turn of the 20th Century? Bob Conkwright is eminently qualified to tackle these questions and has agreed to commit his thoughts to writing for an upcoming sequel to this post.

What is clear, however, is that this unique find from a half century ago makes a strong case that additional corundum is somewhere about. And fortunately, there's no law against checking out the various ever-changing alluvial deposits in and along the Patapsco as it heads downstream.

John S. White Compares Munich to Tucson

2011-12-24T04:54:00.000Z

A May-June, 2009 article about John S. White by publisher Thomas P. Moore of Mineralogical Record (which John founded in 1970), mentioned how "some less than reverent visitors used to ask permission to dig in the hypothetical pile of discarded matrixes in John's back yard." Though more reverent than that, I had little compunction about eyeing the pebbles in his driveway as we walked out from his home in Stewartstown, PA for lunch at a restaurant in nearby Shrewsbury. The calcite and epidote in our title picture were the bounty.

John had recently returned from the annual late autumn Mineralientage München (Munich) show. Though my visit was primarily social, I was interested in learning as much as possible from John about how this event differed from the extravaganza that transpires from the end of January through the second week of February each year in Tucson.

Most significant, John noted, is that Munich has no fringe shows and no hotel selling. The event is open to the public for two days only and takes place at a single location, namely the four huge halls of Neuen Messe München. Each of these four halls is larger than the Tucson Convention Center.

Partial compensation for the lack of fringe shows and hotel selling is a policy at Munich that allows admission to certain high-end dealers and well-connected advanced collectors during set-up period, which begins on Wednesday and continues through the following day. Doors open for collectors on Friday. The general public gains admission only on Saturday and Sunday.

Mineralientage München consists of four "worlds:" Mineralworld, Gemworld, Fossilworld, and Stoneworld. While the titles tell the story, it's notable that Gemworld has a few gem minerals and that the wares in Stoneworld not only run a new-age gamut, but can include everything from interior acoutrements to hot stone massages.

My conversation with John focused mostly on Mineralworld. Along with world class exhibits---2011's Show featured European Classics---Mineralworld is divided into sections, halls unto themselves. The "super-premium dealers," as John descried them, operate from the most elaborate stalls in a walled in section. With dealers of all stripes in between, Mineralworld also accommodates dealers small enough to be clustered where each could have as little as a meter of space.

Scattered throughout are Chinese, Afghan, Pakistani, and Indian dealers. The quality and prices of their merchandise can vary from one hall to another. The Chinese dealers, says John, are likely to have the best material and the most new finds. Regardless of nationality, John emphasizes that as in Tucson, quality and prices are all over the map and often far from commensurate.

Moroccan dealers by the dozens are clustered in another hall and as at Tucson generally have more predictable inventory that varies little from year to year. The question was(is) how can they all make enough money to keep returning? The answer, John says is that they are there for many reasons, not just to profit on their mineral sales.

Notably different from the “Big Show” in Tucson, John states with emphasis, is that "excellent food courts are all over the place," with much better fare than available at the Tucson Convention Center. The catalog for the Munich Show is also a lot slicker than at Tucson. John gives me one shortly before I leave.

Walking once again the few steps across the driveway from his door to my car, I stoop to pilfer another pebble, because unlike the others, it's quartz. About to toss it later as the waning natural light in my office rendered little of interest to be visible, I opted first for a quick glance under the scope. Revealed was the phlogopite micromineral at left.

Collecting at the LeFarge Quarry in Churchville, MD

2011-12-09T17:14:00.000Z

The LaFarge Quarry in Churchville, Maryland, has become a popular field trip destination in recent years for mineral societies that have the proper insurance and whose members adhere to carefully stipulated safety regulations.

The collecting takes place along the berms on either side of two benches. Most of the rock is gneiss or metagabbro that can be boring to observe. But for the collector who knows where and how to look, it offers up a significant variety of minerals.

The quarry walls show occasional zeolite intrusions clearly visible from the benches below. On a recent trip sponsored by the Baltimore Mineral Society, several members uncovered and extracted some fine specimens of stilbite and chabazite from the berm beneath such an intrusion. They did so by attacking promising looking large boulders on the berms with sledge hammers and by turning over the smaller boulders and rocks amongst them. A significant find by any measure was the specimen displaying balls of stilbite crystals in the box at right,

Just as remarkable was a foot long vuggy vein of exquisite pseudorhombic pink chabazite crystals in another boulder beneath this same intrusion. Trimmed of a few hand specimens, the particularly impressive crystals remaining in the boulder appeared unlikely to survive further trimming on site without serious risk of damage. The circumstances prompted the seasoned and skilled collector who'd first spotted it to haul home all 25 pounds of the partially trimmed boulder that remained. Associated with the chabazite were a few small heulandite crystals.

Plucked as you see it at right from a point along the berm at least fifty yards beyond the zeolite veins in the quarry wall was the laumontite piece shown at right. Though a keeper, it falls far short of the best this locality has been known to produce.

Vugs in the rocks and boulders along the berms are scarce, and whenever noticed are worthy of checking out. One such vug yielded a pair of colourless and nearly transparent calcite crystals, each about 2 centimeters across, unusual for this locality. Another interesting find that someone told me about was an approximately one inch long mass of molybdenite in matrix. More typical finds included epidote in dark green blades up to about an inch as well as some transparent yellow-green micro-crystals. No doubt some clinozoisite was also collected, though none that I observed. And finally, as at just about every crushed stone quarry in the Maryland Piedmont, there was pyrite, mostly massive, sometimes in small octohedra, occasionally with associated minor chalcopyrite.

A "New Old" Baltimore County Locality

2011-11-30T19:22:00.006Z

Call it "new" because there's little evidence that many people know about it. Call it "old" because my friend Harold Levey collected kyanite and staurolite here sixty years ago. The locality is on a hillside with extensive outcrops along the south bank of the Gunpowder River immediately east of the Paper Mill Road Bridge(s).

I can't think of another locality where garnets (var. almandine) are more prevalent than in the biotite muscovite plaglioclase-quartz schist that comprises these outcrops. Closer to industrial than gem quality and often quite weathered, garnets up to about an inch in diameter are everywhere.

Quartz that frequently intrudes into the schist, is what Harold recalls as the most likely matrix for kyanite. Typically bladed, he remembers finding it in loose rocks fetched from the ground. The season had been summer, and those rocks were not so hidden as they were today by a late November canopy of leaves. Otherwise, I suspect we'd have found some kyanite. However, we did come up with some staurolite.

This is probably he same locality that The Natural History Society of Maryland's 1940 publication, Minerals of Maryland , by Charles W. Ostrander and Walter E. Price, referred to as "At Ashland." The only other printed words were "In schist-kyanite, staurolite, and garnets."

We found the staurolite in the same schist that yielded all the garnets. The crystal bore the same almost gemmy luster as the ones Bob Simonoff encountered this past spring near Rockland. The fact that Minerals of Maryland listed no other Maryalnd localities for staurolite would lend further support that this was Ostrander and Price's "Ashland."

Very appealing about the locality is that by all indications, it appears to be collector friendly, so long as not swarmed en masse as a field trip destination, of which it should hardly prove worthy. Currently, parking for one car is available at a small pull-off immediately south of the bridge. When fishing season resumes, the space likely will be taken, or worse a no parking sign could be screwed to a metal post as one probably was at some point in the past. There are two slightly larger places to park not far down the road on the other side of the bridge.

The northern bank of the Gunpowder is similarly rocky. Harold recalls having prospected here as well, albeit to little or no avail.

Collecting at Sugar Grove, West Virginia

2011-11-13T18:15:00.000Z

West Virginia? Aside from the meager Sugar Grove road cut locality in Pendleton County, I often wonder what else this state has to offer the mineral collector and why more information is not available. Considering the abundance of localities in all the states that surround West Virginia, such a dearth of mineral localities doesn't seem to add up. And certainly should not some of the geological activity that formed all those mountains left the state with more places to collect?

Pictured above from left to right at Sugar Grove are Robert Miller, Patrick Haynes, Maureen Campeau, and Stephanie Thi, all having a wonderful time breaking open chunks of basalt freed from the the shale into which they intruded millions of years ago. Therein are endless vugs which bear a variety of mineral species that can be quite spectacular when viewed beneath the scope.

Particularly notable is filiform pyrite, one of the most intriguing of this common mineral's numerous morphological forms. Filiform pyrite is has crystallized in the form of needles, which sometimes bend at right angles. Often at Sugar Grove, these needles are associated with the soft iron-rich clay silicate mineral nontronite, which can range in colour here from a light gray-blue to greenish black. At left is an example where the filiform pyrite has threaded dark spheres of nontronite. A right angle bent pyrite crystal coated with light bluish gray nontronite is shown at right. Microscopic pyrite crystals of other habits occur at Sugar Grove as well. Intergrown cubes are particularly prevalent

Chabazite (variety phacolite) is also notable amidst Sugar Grove's bounty. The larger crystals are easily identified. Smaller crystals that are visually quite similar to the phacolite, however are unfamiliar enough to stump me on visual identification. In the image at left, the larger 7mm. crystal to the right is obviously phacolite, but the smaller crystals to the left of it, I'm not so sure about. Included among them could be analcime and harmotome perhaps chabazite of a different habit, possibly even calcite, which is also common in these vugs, occasionally in the largest crystals of any species known to occur here.

Less common, but fun to find, is mesolite. Over three hours of cracking open rocks and peering with my loupe into vugs, the piece shown at right was the only mesolite that I, or to the best of my knowledge, anyone in our group came up with.

Though the collecting was better than expected, the locality was quite different than what I'd expected to find. It is an unremarkable looking road cut on the west side of Sugar Grove Road about 12 miles south of its intersection with Route 33. Needless to say, the area is quite rural. A possible landmark approximately 100 yards to the north on the opposite side of Sugar Grove Road is a couple of sheds, one with open sides, and a possible presence of a few old farming and/or construction vehicles and equipment.

A First Rate Appalachian Mineral Vacation

2011-10-31T11:40:00.004Z

It began on a rainy Oct. 19, 2011, the only day for the next eight of anything less than picture postcard perfect weather. First stop was Harrisonburg, Virginia, to see the great James Madison University Mineral Museum. On display there are some of the greatest Virginia minerals known to exist (note the Amherst County amethyst at left), much of Elmwood Tennessee's finest, a Franklin/Sterling Hill fluorescent room, and an amazing selection of worldwide minerals. Nearby, I overheard heard two men who had recently entered the museum discussing a pair of smithsonites that Peter Via of Roanoke, Virginia had donated. Shown at right, these two different coloured smithsonites were collected at the same particularly noteworthy locality, namely the San Antonio El Grande Mine in Chihuahua, Mexico. Having just finished gawking at them and with plans to visit Mr. Via the next day and see his collection, I could not restrain myself from barging in. Turned out I was interrupting the Museum's legendary curator, Dr. Lance Kearns, as he was escorting the renowned collector Frank Hissong on a tour. They couldn't have been nicer, and we enjoyed a conversation touching upon subjects that hopefully Mineral Bliss will be in a position to cover in future posts.

I didn't really know what to expect when visiting Peter Via the following day in Roanoke. My friend John White had helped to arrange this meeting. On the other hand, I should have known. After all, it was John who had made pulled similar strings on my behalf a year ago for a visit to meet Jack Halpern and view his collection in San Francisco. And once again, I found myself in the company of another unique, gracious, and genuinely
interesting collector who had put together one of the premier private assemblages of minerals on the planet. Though with endless stories to share that were often embellished with a sense of humor leaning toward the wild side, Peter rarely attends mineral shows, even Tucson. He prefers to deal more privately, often purchasing specimens of such fragility and value as to require hand delivery. What a privilege to interact with such a collector and view the treasures he's accumulated over a lifetime. Labels don't accompany the specimens filling his intricately illuminated display cases, and some pieces were spectacular enough to occasionally belie my visual perception regarding their species. Upon complimenting Peter on the "cadmium smithsonite" at right, he had to inform me that in fact, it was Mexican mimetite.

I spent the night in Floyd, Virgina, enjoying a rootsy hotbed for Appalachian music then climbed nearby Buffalo Mountain the next day before heading on to Asheville, North Carolina. Included among my activites there was a visit the Colburn Earth Sciences Museum at Pack Place in the heart of town. Along with plenty of impressive mineral specimens, many of the Colburn's systematically organized worldwide specimens and even a few pieces in a separate North Carolina suite could have passed for study pieces compared to much that I'd seen at James Madison University and in Peter Via 's collection. Fine with me: The Colburn is far more conducive to learning about and understanding the earth sciences than most such museums, and I applaud them for this. But darnit, I've written to the Colburn as well as mentioned here in Mineral Bliss that what is pictured at right is NOT cacoxinite. It's goethite! Someone once suggested to me that making the correction could prove sensitive to the the (anonymous) donor. Heaven help me if I'm wrong.

Upon leaving Asheville, my next stop was Corundum Knob in Clay County, North Carolina, where I managed to actually dig up and break open a rock with a bleb of near-gem-quality ruby in it . This was probably sheer luck. I've since learned that the best technique for finding ruby here is to inspect the surface of boulders with a laserlike ultraviolet light, and break up any that show spots of fluorescence.

My next stop was Gatlinburg to spend the night prior to taking the delightful 2.3 mile hike to Alum Cave Bluff in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This is the type and only locality on earth known to have yielded the rare earth microminerals coskrenite, levinsonite, and zugshunstite. Don't expect to go there and find any. I can pretty much attest that such an effort would prove fruitless and can assure that anyone attempting to do so without a special permit would be subject to federal prosecution.

After fortunately falling asleep back in Gatlinburg while watching my home team Baltimore Ravens worst game ever on Monday Night Football, it was time to begin heading homeward. I stopped along the way to climb Mt. Pisgah, and then put in at Asheville after dining at Curate, this city's new first rate and very cosmopolitan tapas bar.

Thereafter my plan had been to return to Baltimore with a detour into Pittsylvania County,Virginia to check out a site at Coles Hill near Chatham, Virginia, where 119 million pounds of uranium are said to lie beneath the ground. My excitement over this jaunt had diminished somewhat after reading on the Internet that finding any collectible uranium bearing mineral specimens thereabouts would be most unlikely.

More intriguing was the blessing of another postcard autumn day along a route that just happened to pass directly by Grandfather Mountain. I wonder now what John White must have thought when he was helping me line up my visit with Peter Via. Why had I overlooked Grandfather Mountain when boasting to him about all the other mineral spots in this part of the country that were on my itinerary? John knows that I know he played a major role in putting together the mineral display at the highly regarded nature museum there.

Misinformed prejudgment on my part had perceived Grandfather Mountain to be akin to a tourist theme park. I really should have known that Grandfather Mountain offers some of the most interesting and exhilarating hiking in the Appalachians, while its nature museum displays, largely through John's efforts, what obviously are numerous best of species North Carolina minerals. One good example is the amethyst at left from the Reel Mine at Iron Station in Lincoln County, North Carolina. And for those such as myself who just as much crave some of the rarer if less visually spectacular minerals, the bikitaite at right should prove to be a mindblow. Is it conceivable to anyone that a larger or finer example of this species could ever have been unearthed? Hopefully, in the future, with input from John, who at present is in Munich, Mineral Bliss will provide its readers with a lot more regarding this fascinating museum.

With a bit of time remaining to hike, I drove on from the Nature Museum to the Black Rock Parking Area and from there hiked the half mile trail up to Grandfather Mountain's Mile High Swinging Bridge. The view from here is amazing. About 15 miles off in the distance was a peak that for many years I'd viewed from the Blue Ridge Parkway with awe and mystification. A ranger informed me that this was Table Rock and provided me with directions to the base of the trail leading to its pinnacle. With yet another consecutive day of perfect weather predicted, the opportunity for that delightful and easier than expected climb added a final extra wonderful day to one of the best vacations of my life.

Largest Native Maryland Faceted Gemstone in Existence

2011-10-18T06:02:00.004+01:00

Editor's note:

Jeff Nagy very kindly provided the stones that are pictured in this post for me to photograph and followed through by forwarding what is to follow. The narrative begins with a basic bulleted description of a cut stone from smoky quartz that he believes to be the largest faceted gemstone cut from Maryland material. His name for it is the "The Clarksville Sultan, "and here is his story. JWS

THE LARGEST FACETED GEMSTONE CUT FROM NATIVE MARYLAND ROUGH

by Jeff Nagy.

"THE CLARKSVILLE SULTAN" SPECIFICATIONS

Faceting – William Nagy (Rockville, Maryland – Member of the GLMSMC)

Gem Material – Smoky Quartz (root beer color, Medium Saturation)

Origin of Rough – Clarksville, Maryland

71 facets + 18 girdle facets for a total of 89 facets

Weight – 72.5 carats

Dimensions – 29.82 mm x 23.36 mm x 18.70 mm.

Style – Modified Rectangular Cushion Cut

Name of Cut – “The Sultans Seat”

li>Designer – John Bailey

After a few years of investigative work, culminating in 1988, noted Maryland mineral collector Fred Parker, was able to pinpoint the source of fine euhedral quartz crystals reported in the 1930’s by Ostrander and Price in their book, “Minerals of Maryland.” Within a short time of the re-discovery, however, Fred found the site being prepared for a housing development. Fred observed the progress of grading and patiently waited. His persistence paid off when the bulldozers uncovered the unmistaken outline of a decomposing, kaolinized pegmatite. Fred approached the site foreman and asked for permission to dig. Since the machines were leaving this area for a few weeks to concentrate on another section of the site, he was given permission. The rest is history. For the next few weeks, Fred was able to extract dozens of fine euhedral crystals, some root beer colored, some clear, of varying sizes and clarity. A few were the size of Coke Bottles. They are considered to be some of the finest quartz crystal specimens to have ever been found on the east coast.

Fast forward to the summer of 2008, when I purchased a number of Maryland specimens from Fred’s collection, including a few of the coveted quartz crystals from the 1988 Clarksville find. I brought them home and examined each one carefully. As a faceter, I began to consider cutting one of the smaller crystals. I chose one that was promising; a root-beer colored crystal of approximately 400 carats, terminated on one end. It appeared to be almost flawless. The more I looked at it, the more I hesitated. I just couldn’t bring myself to cut it. So for the next three years it sat on a shelf in my shop.

By the end of July, 2011, I had finally decided to take the plunge and commit to, what a fellow collector termed, “the act of barbarity.” In that three year interval my father, William Nagy, had become a gemstone faceter, learning the basics from Jim Perkins in Jim’s Ohio studio. So I decided to have dad cut the stone. In mid-August I visited my father, showed him the rough, and specified how I wanted the crystal cut. The center section was to yield the largest stone, a modified cushion cut. The terminated end was to be a round brilliant, executed in whatever variant my father wanted. The other end, where it looked like the crystal had been attached while it was growing, was left to the discretion of my father. By August 31st, dad had finished all three cuts. The results were amazing.

The largest of the three, which I have named “The Clarksville Sultan,” is what I believe to be, the largest faceted gemstone in existence cut from native Maryland Material. It is a John Bailey design called “The Sultan’s Seat.” Details directions for cutting this design can be found on John Bailey’s website: http://www.gemstoneartist.com/designs/SltnSeat.pdf. It is a modified rectangular cushion cut, which John describes as “not quite an OMNI, but cuts a bit similarly.” It is comprised of 71 facets plus 18 girdle facets, for a total of 89 facets. There are two versions available; one with a keel pavilion, the other an apex pavilion. I opted for the apex pavilion. It was cut on a Facetron machine.

The workmanship and artistry of the cut is outstanding, with meet-points dead on. The final polish was first done with a Raytech Last-Lap and 100K diamond powder in lamp oil, and then finished-off with a blue Ultra-Lap. The polish is exceptionally fine. It measures 29.82 mm x 23.36 mm x 18.70 mm, and weighs 72.5 carats. The stone is of a rich, light root-beer color with medium color saturation. As the crown facets were being cut one small feather was found. However, it is positioned in a section of the stone where it is not readily noticeable and does not detract from the appearance or performance of the stone, which is quite bright and flashy.

The second gemstone is a round brilliant, 14.5 carats in weight, measures 16.9 mm, and exhibits the same rich color of its larger brother. The faceting and polish is superb; the final polish accomplished using a blue Ultra-Lap.

The third stone, a smaller version of “The Sultan’s Seat,” weighs 3.0 carats. Its color is very light brown, not having the deep, rich color of the two larger stones. It measures 7.9 mm x 10.1 mm. The final polish was done with a blue Ultra-lap.

My father, William Nagy, was taught to facet by Master-Faceter Jim Perkins. Dad’s expertise, patience, and artistry are exhibited in this distinctive gemstone. While not exceptionally large as gemstones go, it does however represent the untapped potential of a State that is not known for producing quality pieces such as this. There is more to come.

The Desautels Symposium and the Micromounters Hall of Fame

2011-10-04T13:35:00.006+01:00

Our title picture shows but a minute portion of the classic (best in the world) vintage micromount display that John Ebner brings down from New Jersey the first weekend of October each year to the M.H.A's Cal Pierson Conference Center in Elkridge, Maryland. It is the venue for the Baltimore Mineral Society's annual Desautels Micromount Symposium. This 55th annual occurrence of world's first and longest- lived annual micromount symposium celebrated its 55th year between 7:30 PM on Sept. 30, 2011, and 2 PM Sunday, Oct. 2. Sponsored and produced since inception by the Baltimore Mineral Society, the event attracts micromount aficionados from around the globe for a weekend of fellowship, trading, purchasing, and presentations that include inducting new members into the Micromounters Hall of Fame.

Inductees not only own substantial micromount collections, they must for at least 15 years have been among the " loudest for the longest, demonstrated generosity, and helped others." Quintin Wight, perennial master of ceremonies for Micromounters Hall of Fame inductions, speaks these words each year when describing what it takes to be considered for selection. Perhaps no one else on earth more personifies these criteria than Quintin Wight himself. Hailing from Canada, he is a 1990 inductee who regularly travels the globe with his wife Willow to participate in micromount conferences and symposia. Each year, Quintin reports on these events in a major article in Rocks and Minerals. He also authored the hardcover and glossy Complete Book of Micromounting, published in 1993 by Mineralogical Record.

Since any attempt to even briefly describe the essence of John Ebner's collection would at the very least merit it's own post, we limit photographic coverage in our title picture to one little corner of it bearing the original Hall of Fame plaque from the late and legendary micromounter Paul Seel's 1981 induction. The micromount collection Seel accumulated is one of the greatest in the world. Upon his death in 1982, he bequeathed the entire collection, which notably included a vast array of diamonds from nearly every locality on earth, to the curatorship of James W. Hurlbut at the Denver Museum of Natural History and Science. In addition to overseeing the Seel collection Mr. Hurlbut has been an active fixture in the mineralogical community since 1947 as a speaker, author, and director of field trips. The youngish looking for age 90 inductee is shown at left next to Quintin Wight upon receiving his Hall of Fame plaque.

Also inducted and pictured at right receiving from Quintin a similar plaque, is Dr. R. Peter Richards. Among other pursuits, Dr. Richards is a prolific author of articles in Rocks and Minerals and Mineralogical Record. Although by profession a senior research scientist at Heidelberg University's National Center for Water Quality Research laboratory, he is highly trained in and spends much of his time studying mineralogy focusing in particular on crystal morphology, a topic of paramount interest to micromounters. Among his better known accomplishments was conversion of the crystal drawing application known as SHAPE for use on the Macintosh computer.

As dictated by tradition, this past spring the Board of the Baltimore Mineral Society, upon review of numerous letters of recommendation previously submitted to Quintin Wight, selected two new future Micromount Hall of Famers for induction at its 2012 symposium. One of those chosen, Arnold G. Hampson, of Dolores, Colorado, unfortunately passed away soon thereafter without learning of his selection, which will be presented posthumously. The other future Hall of Famer was New Zealander, Rod Martin, a major player in the international community of micromounters who also publishes and researches prolifically.

Subsequent to their inductions, both Jim Hurlbut and Pete Richards treated the crowd to presentations about subjects on which they're considered experts. The former spoke on the extensive (primarily gold) mining operations in Colorado's Breckingridge District. He illustrated his talk with maps as well images portraying native gold specimens of mind-boggling size and substance. Pete Richards' presentation featured crystals formed in recent years by a year long shale fire that started in talus along the banks of the Huron River near Cleveland, Ohio. Highlights were photographs of sal ammoniac crystals showing a range of habits diverse almost beyond comprehension. Pete also showed other fascinating shale-fire-created crystals of other materials with slightly different molecular arrangements that he suggested should qualify for approval as minerals.

The next day, Sunday, from 9 AM until about noon, attendees continued to socialize, to trade, to purchase mounts from busy dealers whose tables lined the main hallway, as well as peruse and help themselves to the myriad mostly unmounted rocks bearing micromount potential remaining at giveaway tables in a side room. Dan Behnke, one of the world's pre-eminent photographers of micromounts then gave the final presentation, which focused on the Clark Mine in Keweenah County, Michigan.

Before leaving, the crowd was treated to a buffet lunch as they had been both the day before (Saturday) as well as Friday evening. Most will probably be back to the Pierson Center during early next spring for the Atlantic Micromounters' Conference, an event that's very similar to the Desautels Symposium except without the Hall of Fame inductions.

My Wheatleyite

2011-09-22T21:48:00.000+01:00

Our post of August 21, 2011, about the East Coast Show at West Springfield, Massachussetts, heralded what is pictured above as follows:

My most expensive purchase was a speck of something visually indiscernible inside a clear plastic capsule. That evening, one of the most prolific micromount dealers on the planet, namely Maureen (Campeau), spent nearly five minutes examining the capsule under the scope to ascertain that it was not in fact empty. So much for my stewardship of one of the rarest species in existence (from Phoenixville, PA), which will be the subject of an upcoming post. Stay tuned.
The visually indiscernible speck---at least to the naked eye---in that plastic tube turned out to actually be several similarly indiscernible specks, three of which appear to bear the mineral wheatleyite. The species is a natural sodium copper salt of oxalic acid, named from the long closed and inaccessible Wheatley Mine in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. In our image, wheatleyite is apparent in the blue staining on the dark pieces on the right (probably sphalerite) and the clear crystal just above and to the left of the larger colourless speck (possibly anglesite.)

The renowned collector Bill Pinch discovered wheatleyite on the Wheatley dumps in the form of a few micro-crystals on a rock. He provided a portion of what was to become the type (and only) specimen to the Smithsonian. There, the now legendary mineralogist Pete Dunn shepherded the material to approval and ultimately publication through The American Mineralogist in 1986. The article refers to Bill Pinch's find as "the type (and only )specimen of wheatleyite." It goes further to note that the piece "is known from only one hand specimen, which consists mostly of massive galena and sphalerite in contact with quartz."

The Handbook of Mineralogy refers to wheatleyite as "very rare, on a specimen found on the mine dumps of a Pb–Zn vein deposit." The only reference to the possibility that another specimen might exist was an uncited mention in Bernard and Hrysl's Minerals and Their Localities of an occurrence at the Nishinomaki Mine in Japan. Such an occurence is not noted at MINDAT or elsewhere that my own extensive search in cyberspace could locate.

Needless to say, there is not much Wheatleyite around. The well-known and respected species dealer from whom I acquired my wheatleyite specks noted that his source had been a "tiny vial of fragments" that Bill Pinch "gave, sold, or traded" to the late species collector, Joseph Cilen. from whose 23,000 specimen collection he purchased it.

Since the West Springfield show, I managed to acquire another speck of wheatleyite, this time in a vial from the same dealer. He informed that it was the one additional grain he could provide. Pictured at left, this new piece resembles the sole picture that I could find on MINDAT (as well as anywhere else), although the blue colouration is minimal.

So now, in my collection, are several specks of what surely has to be one of the rarest species in the mineral kingdom. What I paid for them will remain private. It should be enough to say they went for hundreds of times the price of gold.

Possibilities of Wroewolfeite and Leadhillite at Loudville

2011-09-01T19:33:00.001+01:00

Our most recent post noted we were eager to follow up upon a recent find of suspected wroewolfeite at its type locality, namely the Manham River Dumps near Loudville, Massachussetts. As noted, the "finder" was the legendary Patrick Haynes, whose micromineralogical acumen has led to the discovery of eight new minerals. He has since photographed through his scope the piece he showed me at the site and also, upon later examination of his day's take, identified a second speck of similarly curious crust. Patrick emailed the two images shown above with the following commentary:

I do not know if the two blue images I sent are wroewolfeite. They could be posnjakite, langite, or ktenasite. The first one is a film/crust alteration product on underlying sphalerite. The more green one is a mass of very fine-grained xls. They could easily be 2 different minerals, but most mineralogists do not want to "waste their time on crusts" so I will probably not ask anyone to ID them.

Langite is the only of the three other possibilities mentioned to have been reported from this locality (at least according to Mindat). In any event, it's an interesting find, especially since we we can rule out malachite, brochantite, or chrysocolla.

The brochantite at left and the malachite at right were among the more eye-catching of the microminerals we collected.
Maureen Campeau collected the brochantite, which was photographed by Rod Lee of Simkev Micromounts. Though her field collecting experience is limited compared to Patrick's, her full-time role in the micromount business at Simkev has resulted in a well-trained eye. Patrick collected the acicular malachite. at right as well as the "ball" of malachite shown below at left. I collected a similar albeit dirt-covered malachite ball, but lacked the kind of cleaning tools to render it photogenic. Blame it on red-green colorblindness, but it was on the only rock I managed to collect to bring home.

On another part that same single rock, the blue material pictured at right, another mystery mineral, presented itself beneath my scope: Patrick checked out the image and suggested the same possibilities for identification as in his earlier comments on the "wroewolfeite?" crusts, adding devillene and linarite to the mix. The crystals did not appear to be acicular enough to be aurichalcite, a fragment of which Patrick collected, which is shown in the photomicrograph at left.

More prevalent, on the Manham dumps are micro wulfenite crystals. Patrick came up with several particularly showy examples, the two most interesting of which appear below at right.

One other specimen of particular interest that turned up later was Patrick's find of the hexagonal colourless micromineral at left. With its morphology ruling out cerussite or anglesite (neither of which we found very much of this year), he's thinking leadhillite. " I'm going to label it as leadhillite," he says, "unless I find a mineralogist who'd like to test it." Assuming a reasonable possibility that this really could be leadhillite, collected in 2011 at the Manham dumps in Loudville, Massachussetts, it should be well worth testing. One can be certain that very few leadhillite specimens from the Manham dumps at Loudville, regardless of how miniscule, are known to exist.

Despite its vast array of spectacular minerals, the Manham dumps could prove far less interesting to many collectors than they did to us. The likelihood is almost nil of turning over hand or cabinet specimens save for a bit of massive galena in quartz, a few quartz crystals, or small dirty looking crusts of pyromorphite. Rather, the Manham dumps are about breaking open and then examining with a loupe the ubiquitous vuggy rocks, which get hammered up enough become smaller every year. Rocks showing evidence of pyromorphite on their surface are often the best bets. Woodlands shade the area to camouflage all but a few patches of sunlight under which to scutinize the spoils through a loupe. However, by East Coast standards on a good day, this can be a spot that approaches paradise for aficianodos of microminerals.

The East Coast Show: 2011

2011-08-21T14:12:00.000+01:00

How little the show changes from year to year. This after five years of visiting the annual mid-August Friday to Sunday Martin Zinn produced East Coast Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show at the Better Living Center in West Springfield, Massachussetts.

That it doesn't change much from year to year is fine with me. I like this show. It's big enough to attract numerous mineral friends with whom to schmooze as well as minerals to view, peruse, and purchase. At the same time, it's small enough not to overwhelm with as many tough choices and missed opportunities as Tucson presents each February.

One long day at the show, namely Friday, proved sufficient for my purposes. With but three days to spend in New England, enjoying the privilege of accompanying the renowned geologist and field collector Patrick Haynes (below right) and Maureen Campeau of Simkev Micromounts (pictured with yours truly at left) to the centuries old lead mining dumps on the banks of the Manham at Loudville consumed the first. As always, we were treated to plenty of broken up vuggy rocks to further bust up and examine. Although they didn't yield as much cerussite or anglesite as in past years, Patrick came up what very likely could be a microscopic patch of wroewolfeite. Loudville is the type locality for this species, which collectors proclaim is no longer to be found thereabouts. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Pat will email a photomicrograph of this curious pale blue-green crust provided he can locate the rock that bears it amidst scores of others awaiting further study. If so, and he can verify that the material really is wroewolfeite, we'll feature it in a later Mineral Bliss post along with some dazzling microscopic needles of malachite that Maureen collected.

Next day, Friday, August 12, the show: Immediately through the door to the Better Living Center beckoned the breathtaking featured exhibit of specimens from Scott Rudolph's collection. Spellbound, I could not refrain from gawking at them while other attendees demonstrated the willpower to keep moving for an early shot at the best of all that was for sale immediately beyond. Images from the Rudolph collection appear as liberally as space permits throughout this brief write-up.

Soon after the doors had opened,the Better Living Center was packed. A partition separated the retail area from the wholesale area. For my sensibilities---and money---as for most attendees, the much larger retail section was the place to be for the best action. With more time, I'd have headed upstairs for presentations by Bob Jones about gold or Professor Nancy Millard on geodes.

My most expensive purchase was a speck of something visually undiscernible inside a clear plastic capsule. That evening, one of the most prolific micromount dealers on the planet, namely Maureen, spent nearly five minutes examining the capsule under the scope to ascertain that it was not in fact empty. So much for my stewarship of one of the rarest species in existence (from Phoenixville, PA), which will be the subject of an upcoming post. Stay tuned.

By late afternoon, the crowd had thinned out considerably, and word has reached me that business was slow, especially with higher end minerals. Never in my lifetime, with the arguable exception of October, 2008, had the global economy flashed more ominous signals than in the preceding week. This almost certainly influenced the amounts buyers were willing to spend as well as prices the dealers were charging.

Regardless, there are many for whom the joys of collecting minerals tend to transcend economics. During the show and as this is written, word on the street proclaims that the precious metals sector, namely gold, is the hottest investment in the marketplace. Remaining to be seen is whether and how other precious materials from the earth such as gems and minerals may or may not folllow suit.

Panning for Gold, Carrollite, and Maybe Vesuvianite in Carroll County, MD

2011-08-09T03:41:00.000+01:00

What you're looking at above are grains of sand, tiny ones, photographed at 40x. Searching primarily for gold, I panned them from a little stream passing near one of the sites in Carroll County Maryland in what is known as the Sykesville formation. It once produced copper and iron as well as sulfides rich in cobalt. From left to right are what appear be gold in quartz, garnet and carrollite. If not carrollite, the silvery gray piece at right is probably a closely related member of the linnaeite family of minerals, which includes carrollite, siegenite, and linnaeite itself.

Aware of but a single specimen bearing native gold to ever have been collected in this area, I figured that panning for it nearby could be my best approach; likewise for finding carrollite, the cobalt bearing species that derived its name from Carroll County after first being discovered there in the 1800's. Carrollite, like its close cousins siegenite and linnaeite (the species), is known to be a rare and very special find on the accessible dumps remaining in Carroll County.

However miniscule the quantity, if gold really is the source of yellow on that sub-millimeter grain of quartz, chalk it up to Lady Luck. No further such evidence of the yellow metal caught my attention amidst the thousands of particles to end up beneath my scope. Specks that appeared to be cobalt sulfide minerals, though not always easy to identify, were more numerous. I suspect many of these succumbed amidst endless grains of magnetite that were later separated with a magnet from the more interesting material.

Along with all the quartz grains that managed to survive were a few garnet grains. Garnet is likely to find its way into just about any stream in Maryland's Piedmont and is easy to identify. A particularly gemmy pale green and nearly transparent speck that was probably gahnite got away as I tried to separate it from thousands of surrounding particles with the thin sticky pin from the cap of a small tube of G-S Hypo Cement. Other attention grabbing particles were more challenging to identify. An example would be the brownish cube shown above at left. By sheer coincidence, and on an unrelated assignment the same day, I found myself photographing and became struck by how closely itvisually resembled the vesuvianite thumbnail from Coahuila, Mexico that's pictured at right. Interestingly, vesuvianite, albeit of different habit, is known to occur in at least one locality within the Sykesville formation. The specimen shown at left, which is in my personal collection is from the Fanny Frost Quarry, a few miles south across the line in Howard County.

I'm sure my friend Ev Smith, who introduced me to panning, would have successfully isolated a lot more interesting material using tools and equipment better suited for the task. I've recently been in touch with Ev and hope to tag along with him on an excursion in the coming weeks. Hopefully such an experience will render me more proficient not only at panning, but also at better mastering the art---or science---of separating the most interesting grains of sand from the myriad that are less so under the scope.

Maryland Minerals in the Smithsonian Collection

2011-07-28T17:14:00.000+01:00

Pictured at left is an image from a new slideshow of selected Maryland-collected minerals from the Department of Mineral Sciences at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. We have posted this slideshow of 39 images at our Maryland Minerals website. Ken Larsen, a Smithsonian volunteer, shot them all.

Astoundingly and less than coincidentally, the adjacent image is of smithsonite with associated aurichalcite. According to the Smithsonian's database of gems and minerals, the specimen was collected "near Frederick" at the "Beaver Dam Church Site, Linganore Mining District" in Frederick County. Regional mineral people know this long closed late 19th century locality as site the Mountain View Lead Mine. The turquoise coloured material is aurichalcite. As for the pink smithsonite, even responding with the word "WOW!" would prompt me to feel guilty of understatement. Rare in this part of the country, a smithsonite find bearing visual resemblance to any genre of the sort in which collectors typically take interest (for instance as from the Choix locality in Sinaloa, Mexico) is all but unheard of, especially when the colour is pink.

Our procurement of these images resulted from from a year-long effort. The time frame speaks for Federal funding that has diminished to the point that the Smithsonian lacks the human resources to openly grant interested parties access to the hundreds of thousands of mineral specimens it owns that are stored away at inconvenient locations. After denying us access, however, the Smithsonian Mineral Collection Manager ultimately agreed as rare blocks of time became available, to assign a volunteer to photograph the species about which we'd inquired .

The images were selected according to specific questions regarding certain species listed by the Smithsonian according to catalog number on the the Internet. Once linked to the site, click on "Mineral Sciences Collections Search Page," and then on "Search Gems and Minerals." This brings the user to a page where "Maryland" can be inserted on the line for "Province/State/Territory." Upon scrolling to "Maryland" and clicking on it, a list of 987 Maryland species will appear. Allow a minute or so for it to happen as 947 Maryland pieces and their catalog numbers need to download. Clicking on the "+"sign at the left of any given specimen brings up information regarding locality and various other features. The amount of information available varies. For instance, the only locality information available for the chromian clinochlore (kammererite) pictured at right is that it was collected in Maryland.

The slideshow includes several specimens of similar material from various other Maryland localities. Depending upon where and when it was published, this particular species is known not only as chromian clinchlore or kammererite, but also penninite, rhodochrome,and pennine, as well as several other titles. According to Mindat, pennine is a synonym for penninite, which it describes as a variety of clinochlore. Mindat shows "chromian clinochlore" as a separate species for which it lists seven synonyms, none of which is penninite, but one of which is kammererite, and another is rhodochrome. In describing the specimen at left as "penninite" from near Cooptown in Harford County, the Smithsonian database gives both "kammererite" and "rhodochrome" as synonyms. I'm not aware of another species where nomenclature becomes more confusing. It's not without reason that the Smithsonian spells out clearly in its "Terms and Conditions for Use of Online Collections" that there is "no warranty, either express or implied, regarding the completeness, accuracy, or currency of the information in its databases" and that "the user is responsible for verifying identities and provenance against specimens and other primary data sources."

In the elapsed time since I first perused it a year ago, the Smithsonian database has revealed to me numerous other species of interest. I'm not certain whether they were posted on line subsequently, whether their omission resulted from ineptitude on my part at navigating the database as it then existed, or both. Among additional Maryland-collected species of which we're hoping the Smithsonian will be kind enough to provide images as time permits are linarite, jarosite, idaite, azovskite, mackinawite, and tennantite. Even if later rather than sooner, we look forward to the prospect of being able to successfully procure and share these images with our readers.

A Maryland Native Gold Classic

2011-07-16T02:35:00.000+01:00

Simply try to imagine pulling from the ground ---in Maryland---the likes of what is pictured above. It was collected prior to 1940 at the Maryland Gold Mine near Great Falls in Montgromery County, Maryland, and measures 97.51 mm. x 39.1 mm. x 16.26mm. Once part of the Edgar T. Ingalls collection, it has been all but lost lost for 40 years.

Mr. Ingalls, who died in 1974, was the the Maryland Gold Mine's gold-fevered foreman in the years before it closed in 1940 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt froze the gold price at $40 during the Great Depression. First opened in 1868, the Maryland Mine was the oldest and by nearly all accounts the richest of numerous gold mines and prospects in its immediate vicinity. When it closed, Mr. Ingalls went to work with the Dalecarlia Water Treatment Plant on MacArthur Boulevard. He and his the family continued to live in the same Potomac farmhouse on Oaklyn Road

During that period, Edgar T. Ingalls maintained the collection, which also included paintings of mining life by his wife Marie. He kept it at their Potomac farmhouse. a part of which became a mini-museum that was open to the public on weekends. Upon moving to North Carolina in 1971, he sold the entire collection to the U.S. National Park Service with the understanding that it be displayed for the the public to enjoy. This never happened; instead, all the material ended up packed away in boxes, first in the basement of the Great Falls Tavern, later in a facility at Antietam, after that in Springfield, Virginia.

For years, the family shared concerns over what had happened to the collection, and ultimately became vociferous. Their pleadings prompted the National Park Service, at the direction of C&O Canal Historian Ahna Wilson, to locate the collection and transport it to the Park Service's Museum Resource Center in Landover, Maryland.

That news, which the Washington Post reported in late April, reached Jeff Nagy, who is actively compiling and authoring an updated revision of the 1980 Maryland Geological Survey Publication Minerals of the Washington D.C. Area by Lawrence Bernstein. On July 12, 2011, I accompanied Jeff and the noted Maryland collector Fred Parker, who is helping research the book, to the Landover facility, where Ms. Wilson and a friendly National Park Staff had laid out the collection for us to examine and photograph.

It included an array of gold ore samples, nuggets, amalgams, gold dust, tools, Marie's paintings, and even an ore cart. While it all proved to be of great interest, not to mention historical and educational merit, the content of this post's title picture amazed us most. Having long believed the Maryland gold specimen on display at the Smithsonian (pictured at right) to be the finest example of Maryland gold in existence, my opinion quickly changed.

In a recent conversation, Edgar Ingalls' grandson Byron Ricketts, emphasized that his family feels very strongly that this collection deserves to be on display where the public can see it. So do Jeff Nagy, Fred Parker, and Yours Truly. That such material is part of our state's natural bounty is sure to fascinate plenty of Marylanders. Ahna Wilson agrees with us, and Jeff is already making inquiries.

A Staurolite Find Near Baltimore

2011-07-01T00:24:00.000+01:00

Without specifying staurolite, we heralded Bob Simonoff's find along Jones Falls near Rockland in Baltimore County, in the March 27, 2011 Mineral Bliss post entitled A Mineralogical Hike Near Baltimore, Maryland. Later, in our most recent post , Cummingtonite, Amphibole-Anthophyllite or Bronzite? we promised to cover it next or now.

Credit for finding and then quickly realizing that an assortment of dark crystals in a chunk of mica schist probably wasn't the expected schorl goes to Bob Simonoff of Middletown, Maryland. He is shown at left with his 12 year old daughter Jessica, a mineralogical prodigy whose knowledge and accomplishments have brought international reknown. Having nurtured Jessica's interest enough to acquire the "mineral bug," Bob set out on his own one day early last March for a relaxing day in the field, first at Carroll County's Springfield dumps, later Rockland in Baltimore County.

He had been to Rockland last fall with Jessica. Near the trail extending from the parking lot above where Falls Road crosses Jones Falls, they had found plenty of notably small schorl crystals in mica schist. Six months later, after the passage of winter had thinned considerable undergrowth, there was more ground to cover.

"I started kicking around and noticed again more mica schist with crystals. At first, I thought they were simply bigger schorl crystals, but they were really shiny and glassy. The first one I picked up had a fair sized crystal on it. I took a look at it and realized: Wait a minute, that's not schorl."

Simonoff's conclusion only became more certain after bringing a piece home to examine the crystals under a scope. Their cross sections were unusually flat for schorl, while fragments revealed the crystals to be be dark brown in colour, rather than black such as schorl. Bob posted magnified pictures on his Facebook page.

"Julian Gray,Curator of the Tellus Museum in Carterdale, Georgia, looked at themand asked for a couple of other pictures. Ultimately he expressed no doubt but that they were staurolite. I had suspected it was staurolite, but this was the first more knowledgeable confirmation that it really was. I'd never encountered gemmy staurolite and was only used to seeing those more typical earthy twins."

Closer to home, however, those in the know refrained from going on record with a visual identification. At first glance, the crystals very much resembled tourmaline; if not schorl, then perhaps dravite, which in this part of the country occurs primarily in marble.

Even John S. White, past Curator-in-Charge of the Department of Mineral Sciences at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, though believing the crystals to be staurolite, was reluctant to make the call. So he sent a sample for analysis to his friend Dr. Peter Leavens, Professor Emeritus of Geological Sciences at the University of Delaware. Confirmation that the material was indeed staurolite reached him on June 18.

The trail near where Simonoff found the specimens, which years ago replaced the Ma and Pa Railroad is in Robert E. Park. It has long been popular with hikers and joggers, as well as noted for passing a pegmatite dike and later accessing a trail that leads to the Bare Hills serpentine barrens. Neither spot, however, proved to be the site of Bob Simonoff's find. Though dogwalkers continue to be ubiquitous, the park is officially closed and off-limits for collectors.

Cummingtonite, Amphibole-Anthophyllite, or Bronzite?

2011-06-20T13:32:00.000+01:00

The above image, photographed by Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History volunteer Ken Larsen, and identified as the amphibole mineral cummingtonite, is from among several dozen selected Maryland-collected mineral specimens that the museum's mineral sciences department has been kind enough to electronically transmit.

The only available locality information simply states "Maryland." To the best of my knowledge, the only Maryland locality where this relatively obscure mineral has ever been reported was the Bare Hills Copper Mine in Baltimore County. The occurrence was noted in by authors Charles W. Ostrander and William E. Price, Jr. in Minerals of Maryland, the definitive 1940 publication by the Natural History Society of Maryland. The Smithsonian image particularly intrigued me because as a child in the 1950's I collected and am still holding similar material from the Bare Hills Copper Mine dumps, which back then were open and assessible along the north side of Smith Avenue at what has since become the main entrance to the Bonnie Ridge Apartments.

Based on texts available during my childhood, I'd concluded my find to have been the better known species amphibole-anthophyllite, which Ostrander and Price had also reported from the Bare Hills Copper Mine. And so it was until about two years ago when I obtained the specimen pictured at right from the late Larry Krause. Its 1939 label proclaimed it to be amphibole anthophyllite and bore the stamp of none other than the late Charles Ostrander. Despite visual similarities, the colours appeared too dark, and the blades too long for this to be the same species as that in the Smithsonian's as well as my own collection.

For clarification, I looked to Mindat, which, even though the two are named as separate species in Minerals of Maryland, identified "cummingtonite" as a "synonym for amphibole anthophyllite." Further confusion followed: Another species also reported by Ostrander and Price from the Bare Hills Copper Mine was bronzite, a variety of the pyroxene mineral enstatite. Interestingly, a photograph of bronzite copyrighted by Dr. Rob Lavinsky, is but one of two images on Mindat of minerals from the Bare Hills Copper Mine. The only other is my own more recent image of chalcotrichite that was featured in our post of March 8, here at Mineral Bliss. As best as I can ascertain, the material in Dr. Lavinsky's photograph matches our title image from the Smithsonian as well as the piece I collected 50 years ago.

I am certainly not one to be questioning identifications from the Smithsonian, Charles W. Ostrander, Dr. Robert Lavinsky, or for that matter Mindat. The dilemma begs for analysis, albeit a chore likely to rank low amidst the priorities of any lab that might be available to undertake it.

Better news is that our next post features a more timely identification quandary that led to the confirmed analysis of a new find of an unrelated species not previously reported from the Baltimore area. Bob Simonoff uncovered it this past March not more than a few miles from the locality for our amphibole-anthophyllite, cummingtonite, bronzite, or whatever it turns out to be was collected. Stay tuned.

Rocks of Soap

2011-06-08T22:50:00.000+01:00

The three rocks pictured above bespeak a 45 species family unlike any other family within the mineral kingdom. Though in the marketplace for nearly two decades, SoapRocks(R) somehow managed to fly beneath my radar until very recently during a quick visit to the stylish clothing boutique in Wilmington, Delaware that's known as Mystique. Upon learning I was en route to a mineral auction, Mystique's friendly proprietor, Bill McClane. brought some out to show me. Never has another body product so impressed me.

SoapRocks(R) are the creation of T.S. Pink Corporation, of Oneanta, New York. That company’s eponymous founder and CEO, Todd S. Pink, received training both in geology and art several decades ago at the University of New Mexico. After years of making a living in the arts, a “lightbulb moment” flashed one morning in 1991 while Pink was in the shower. “There were these little pieces of soap,” he recalls, “and they made me think of rocks.” Within three years, Pink had trademarked SoapRocks(R) as his new company’s premier product.

SoapRocks(R) are hand crafted by artisans at a facility in Upstate New York not far from T.S. Pink’s offices. Each of the 45 species offers a slightly different blend of whole herb extracts, vitamins, and minerals from aquatic, botanical, and terrestrial sources. Their fragrances differ as well, though ever so subtly. One very specially appealing aspect of SoapRocks(R) is how with use they ultimately “tumble,” into colourful pebbles.

As one whose vocation and avocation have for several years related to minerals, my biggest question for Todd Pink was how had his products escaped me? He explained that while soap rocks had been available at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show (in the Herkimer Diamond booth) as well as other shows, his company wholesales them exclusively to businesses with storefronts.

Pink also shared another reason: “SoapRocks(R)are sustained by the interest of those who use them, not just those who look at them.” Though beautiful to behold, they are not the gemmy specimens they so resemble: they are body products. Yet, what kind of soap could possibly be more appropriate for a mineral person to wash with and have in the lavatory soap dish for the convenience of guests? Or what better gift for a mineral person?

For information regarding where or how to obtain SoapRocks(R), Todd suggested that you call 800-762-7765 or email sales@tspink.com.

Maryland's Geology: The Book

2011-05-20T18:18:00.000+01:00

Martin F. Schmidt, Jr., the author of Maryland's Geology, (Shiffler Publishing, 2010) recently addressed our Baltimore Mineral Society with a particularly interesting program relating to his book. The clear and well illustrated presentation introduced his work to some of us and provided enlightenment to all of us regarding the geology of our state.

Eager to learn more, I ordered Maryland's Geology from Amazon.com the next day. At 164 pages, with numerous illustrations, including various maps, and 26 pages of appendix, it's a short read, but not necessarily a quick one until or unless the reader has become familiar with various geological words and terms, all of which Maryland's Geology clearly describes when they first appear. Ultimately, any serious reader will soon be comfortable with discussion of faults, folds, intrusions, dikes, orogeny, and a lot more. The appearance of such items in the index showing the page number where first defined eases the process of retention.

A table of contents specifically outlines the main points to be covered. Thereafter, 131 pages of text and drawings not only explain the unique and complex geology of Maryland, but serve as a basic primer on the subject of geology. Twenty two additional pages of appendix (not including the aforementioned index) add clarity and help to keep the reader focused.

Maryland's Geology defines Maryland in terms of five landform areas, referred to as provinces. Moving east to west across the state, the provinces are the Coastal Plain, the Piedmont, the Blue Ridge, the Valley and Ridge, the Appalachian Plateaus. The boundaries of all the provinces generally run northeast to southwest across the state, following the trends of the Appalachians across the eastern U.S. The first chapter describes these landform areas. Subsequent chapters explain how the landforms of each province came to be, the processes that caused them, and historical perspective. A final chapter discusses Maryland's geological resources as well as hazards of which to be wary.

Maryland's Geology is a must read for anyone interested in Maryland's mineralogy. Readers with a bit of training, are certain to gain specific regional perspective. For those without it, the book should prove to be an awakening.

A Big Mineral Auction in Pennsylvania

2011-05-09T18:01:00.001+01:00

The mineral collection of the late Joe Varady of Phoenixville, PA, went to auction in Hatfield, PA, at the Adlerfer Auction Company on May 7, 2011. This was six years to the day since the legendary auction of the Jay Lininger Collection. To the best of my knowledge, it was the most important mineral auction to have happened in this part of the country since.

A native of Phoenixville, PA, Joe Varady died of cancer at age 67 last August after more than a half century of collecting minerals. His roots alone, not to mention that he was outgoing, well-known, and very much liked in the region, would be sufficient to drop a strong hint regarding the minerals in his collection.

Perhaps no other collection in existence was richer both in quality and quantity of specimens from the classic localities of Southeastern Pennsylvania, namely the Wheatley, Brookdale, and Chester Mines of Phoenixville. Though Phoenxiville pieces dominated, there were plenty of lots from other Pennsylvania localities, as well as worldwide minerals. Regardless of locality, if any one particular species dominated, it was not unexpectedly pyromorphite.

Joe Dague, a prominent Pennsylvania collector/ dealer/consultant, had appraised the the collection and divided it into lots. Based on the amounts being bid, one might conclude that his numbers seemed high on the inexpensive lots and low on the more pricey ones, some of which featured world class Phoenixville material. Joe Dague knows as well as any of us how subjective the pricing of minerals can be relative to other collectables.

Quite telling were the huge amounts for which some pieces sold. Once out of money and while packing up to leave, I heard bids going as high as $2,200 for the anglesite pictured at left. A lot of bidders specialized in collecting minerals from southeastern Pennsylvania. While they know better than other collectors where and how to obtain them at reasonable prices, they also appreciate and value them more than most other collectors.

All in all, 400 lots ranging in size from one mineral to as many as perhaps 40 were sold. Pictures of them all are currently on the Internet as well as descriptions.

Maryland Wulfenite

2011-04-27T15:44:00.000+01:00

We print this article here as I wrote it for the Spring, 2011 edition of Justin Zzyzx's quarterly publication the Vug, which is also available in print with this addition entirely devoted to the mineralogy of Maryland. Both sites are in the public domain, so posting it here as well should help to create the awareness of Maryland's minerals sought by both publications.

Though little recognized for its wealth of approximately 250 mineral species, the state of Maryland boasts its share of mineralogical anachronisms. One of the most interesting is a singular and unique find of wulfenite from the year 1975 at a Lehigh Cement Company owned crushed stone quarry near Union Bridge in Carroll County. Extracting from the Wakefield Marble of Maryland’s piedmont, the quarry remains open today, its operations much expanded. For many years, it has been totally off limits to any and all collectors.

Maryland wulfenite’s bright yellow colour visually distinguishes it from the better known East Coast wulfenites, namely the reddish orange crystals of former lead producing sites near Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, and the orange crystals from the Pre-Revolutionary Manham lead workings at Loudville, Massachusetts.

Drusy colourless and sometimes-yellow stained calcite nearly always accompanies Maryland’s usually tabular tetragonal wulfenite wulfenite crystals. Though visible to the naked eye, they rarely measure more than a few millimeters, the largest known being about a centimeter in length. Nearly always, they are best appreciated with magnification. Similarly sized colourless crystals of cerussite frequently accompany them.

The late George Brewer, a schoolteacher from Columbia, Maryland, discovered and extracted all of Maryland’s known wulfenite bearing material. Since meeting an untimely death about 30 years ago, his name has become legend to seasoned field collectors in the region. They recall that he usually collected alone during the summers when school was not in session.

John S. White, who was Curator in Charge of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History Division of Mineralogy from 1964 to 1991, had more to say:

I knew George very well. When I lived in Bowie, he used to come often to my home and show me things that he had collected, or just to visit and talk about minerals. In my view he was the best collector in the state of Maryland that I have ever known. He was always turning up amazing things and he had a knack for gaining official access to quarries where collecting was prohibited. He probably found more new species for quarries in the area than any other collector, and he also found several species new to the science. I am sure there would have been a mineral named for him if he had not died at such an early age. Perhaps the most exciting discovery that George made was that of the mineral goosecreekite. He found the very first specimen at the Goose Creek quarry in Loudon County, suspected that it was a new species, and it turned out to be just that. It was subsequently named and described in 1980 using the material that he collected (Dunn, et. al, Canadian Mineralogist, vol. 18, pp. 323-327).

Word has it among the relatively few who are even cognizant of Maryland wulfenite that every known specimen was once part of single rock. August “Andy” Dietz, an Ashland, Virginia dealer and collector who acquired from Brewer several flats of wulfenite bearing material, adds perspective: He recalls:

From what George implied about the wulfenites, they were in an exposed seam in a corner of the quarry that was probably three to four feet long and a couple offeet wide. George was only able to extract what was loose from the blast but he seemed to think he got all that was available to get. The next time he went he
said the area had been blasted away.

Brewer never found any more. Nor did Dietz, when he later collected there with the renowned Maryland collector Fred Parker. For sure this crushed stone quarry at Union Bridge is not typical of a locality where wulfenite would be likely to occur. Nor is any other locality in the state. The Union Bridge wulfenites are a scarce anachronism to be considered a Maryland classic.

State Line Serpentine Walks

2011-04-18T03:56:00.000+01:00

On a relatively rare recent beautiful spring day with no commitments beyond getting from Baltimore to Wilmington, Delaware by nightfall, I opted for heading up Route 1 at midday with time to briefly explore two accessible serpentine barrens along the way: Rock Springs and Chrome Barren Reserve,both in Pennsylvania. The trail through Rock Springs heads north from State Line Road west of Route 222.

In natural history circles, these barrens are touted less for minerals than the very rare plants that thrive in their unique environment. The soil, which is low in nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorous,but rich in magnesium and chromium, is nutritionally inhospitable to much vegetation otherwise indigenous to the area, but welcoming to other rarer plant species. Think serpentine aster, glade spurge, fameflower, lyre-leaved rock cress, prairie dropseed, and arrow-feather. Not seeing much growing that seemed unusual, perhaps April 14 was a bit early in the spring. There weren't many rocks to look at either.

The only interesting rocks I observed comprised roadfill for the Rock Springs parking lot shown in our title picture. They had it all over what rocks I'd spied in the barrens. They had been quarried from the ultramafic rocks beneath the earth at barrens similar to these. Among them was the antigorite in the picture at left, with portions sufficiently translucent and gemmy to refer to as williamsite.

The 340 acre Chrome Barrens Preserve, 59 of which the Nature Conservancy and Chester County Commissioners permanently protect, was my next destination. The main trail here detoured into brambles and dead ends and was difficult to follow. Much of the Chrome Barrens Preserve is deciduous forest. The most accessible rocks were in small alluvial deposits amidst occasional erosion along the trail. I felt justified in taking the chromite in serpentine pictured at left after reading how specifically the sign shown at right exludes rocks or minerals from what must not be damaged or removed

Such a beautiful day to be out in nature, but other locations would have appealed to me more. The day's schedule had been quickly conceived the night before. Realizing that this route to Wilmington passed through Chester County, I would have stayed up later the night before with The Mines and Minerals of Chester County, Pennsylvania by Ronald A. Sloto,2009. This 470 page labor of love has it all in terms of being thorough and specific. It will be my guide next opportunity to so linger when headed in a similar direction.

Simkev Minerals: The Only Enterprise of its Kind

2011-04-03T03:38:00.000+01:00

Maureen Campeau, pictured above, is CEO of Simkev Minerals, which she describes as "our niche." She believes Simkev to be the world's only full time business enterprise that caters exclusively to the definitive product of this visually spectacular and joyously myopic mineralogical venue. A definition from late Neal Yedlin, perhaps the most renowned micromounter ever, is quoted in Quintin Wight's The Complete Book of Micromounting, Tucson, 1993, as follows:

Micromount: a natural mineral specimen , preferably in distinct crystals, mounted, properly labeled, and requiring magnification for meaningful observation.

Since many, if not most, of the approximately 4400 known mineral species require magnification to be meaningfully observed or appreciated, the micromount aficionado likely owns a significantly greater number of different species than most mineral collectors. Of no less significance, micromounts typically enjoy immunity to the dings and imperfections borne by the vast majority of hand specimens. Even better, they cost less and usurp minimal space. A binocular or trinocular microscope and a viable light source are all that's required.

A micromount specimen must be small enough to be fit within the confines of the approximately one square inch base of a two piece plastic micromount display case that's usually 3/4 of an inch to an inch in height. While many micromount collectors prefer to mount their own pieces, much of the material they are likely to be seeking has already been mounted.

Maureen's partner, Rodney Lee, who founded the business over 30 years ago (1979), mounts approximately 85 per cent of the Simkev specimens. Maureen mounts the remaining 15 per cent when time permits. Rod then photographs a sample specimen through a binocular scope attached with an adapter to his Canon Rebel, then writes up the locality and a brief visual description. All locations are verified prior to being labeled by Maureen.

While the Internet accounts for most sales, established customers not privy to the Internet receive printed mailings heralding new inventory. Maureen noted that these mailings receive an amazingly high 95 per cent response rate. She describes her clientele as "nearly all men, about 50 per cent European-American, and the rest international.”

Maureen, who is responsible for the business end of the operation, likes to think of herself more as "chief cook and bottle washer," than CEO. She is the person who responds to all email inquires, invoicing, order processing and mailings. If you have a question that needs addressing, she will get the answer or find someone who can. Recently, she became more active in (personal) sales, and marketing in the United States as well as Canada. In the past year she attended the East Coast Gem and Mineral Show in West Springfield, Massachusetts last August, actively worked the Baltimore Mineral Society's Desautels Micromount Symposium in Elkridge, Maryland, this past October, schmoozed for two weeks in February at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, and most recently worked the Atlantic Coast Micromount Symposium April 1 and 2. The Rochester (NY) Mineralogical Symposium April 15, 16, and 17 is next.

More conventional mineral dealers and serious field collectors provide most of the minerals that Rodney trims into mounts. Acquiring inventory can be a challenge but Simkev prides itself in selecting only that material that is aesthetic and reasonable to purchase for resale. Rod and Maureen do their best to acquire new and rare material at a reasonable price. It is important that all specimens have visual appeal even if it only becomes apparent under the scope. "A lot of what we get are three inch rocks that either Rod or I will trim down," notes Maureen.

Working with a tabletop trimmer, Rod and Maureen separate and isolate pieces that best display the crystals in matrix. They try to make sure that most specimens have at least three quarters of an inch of matrix with each specimen. Crystals in matrix look much better than an individual crystal alone. Sometimes they have no choice, but in most cases the three-quarter inch rule applies. Rod uses mineral tack to mount all but the tiniest and most fragile specimens, which he glues to a cork pedestal that he affixes to the micromount case base. The only exceptions are occasional mounts to be considered "vintage" or with such added-value provenance as to have previously been mounted by or from collections of those with legendary stature among micromounters.

As for pricing, Maureen notes two factors: "The first consideration," she says, "is what we paid. The second is rarity and aesthetics.” In the past year, she and Rodney have sold over ten thousand mounts encompassing over 600 species. The highest price they ever charged was $75.00, which represents only three or four specimens in those ten thousand mounts. Many, perhaps most, sell for as little as $8.00. "What's most important, regardless of price" Maureen emphasizes, "is quality---and, of course customer service." Simkev prides themselves on quality and service.

Many times Maureen can receive a request for specimens in the morning and the "pretties" are on the way to a new home that same afternoon.

A Mineralogical Hike near Baltimore, Maryland

2011-03-27T22:45:00.000+01:00

This is a pleasant safe hike of just over two miles through accessible public terrain, mostly in Robert E. Lee Park. It offers pegmatites, serpentine barrens, and chrome pits. The trail begins by following the former railroad bed of the long abandoned Greenspring Branch from the off-road parking area along the northbound stretch of Falls Road just past where it crosses Jones Falls.

Very recently, while I was busy writing two articles for The Vug * assigned to me by twelve year old Jessica Simonoff, her father Bob headed here on his own to check it out. He didn't get very far before making a find worthy of ---and soon to be---the subject of its own post here at Mineral Bliss. Stay tuned for that one.

The trail passes through woodlands for the better part of a mile. To the right is Jones Falls. On the left is hillside with occasional cuts from the former train tracks. Schist comprises most of the rock displayed by these cuts. At approximately a quarter mile, a thick vein of milky quartz runs through the schist. About hundred yards farther along, veins of exposed pegmatite(see picture at left) display plenty of pink orthoclase, quartz and mica. One wonders whether beryl or apatite might linger somewhere within. These small pegnatites, however, have greater value as scenery. Taking even take a curious whack with a hammer could result in a destruction of public property rap worthy of rigid enforcement.

The trail continues to a foot bridge crossing Jones Falls. Just beyond, the stunted evergreens of the Bare Hills serpentine barrens, once one of the world's leading sources of chromite, are visible atop the hillside at right through still bare deciduous tree branches. The barrens then drop out of sight as the trail bears straight ahead through an area where old railroad ties still linger across it. Thereafter, it partially fades and divides. A trail to the right leads up to the barrens.

Upon approach, the rocks change quickly from mostly schist, quartz and feldspar to dull green brown serpentinite often dotted with chromite. The long out of print 1940 Natural History Society of Maryland Publication Minerals of Maryland by Ostrander and Price lists the following minerals as present: Chromite, talc, chalcedony, opal, baltimorite, crysolite, sepiolite (meerschaum), magnesite, chlorite, rhodochrome (pink clinochlore), gymnite in chalcedony (deweylite), dendritic wad, marmolite, williamsite, porcellophite, pyroxene, hyalite, hydromagnesite, and moss agate. Most of these minerals are said to have been collected at the barrens on the opposite side of Falls Road. For the last 40 years, at least, all of that land has been privately owned, mostly built over, and otherwise posted. Although the same serpentine barrens grace either side of Falls Road, the rocks here on this side appear duller and with less definition. Perhaps the species noted in Minerals of Maryland could be present, but little that met my eye encouraged optimism about the likelihood of spotting very many.

The intersecting trail to the right proceeds through the barrens in a westerly direction. The rocks along it appear marginally more interesting, occasionally revealing readily identifiable chrysotile, talc, and magnesite. Another attraction is the pit pictured at right.

After about a quarter mile, it ends where a trail to the right heads out of the serpentine barrens, back into the woodlands and downhill to meet the railroad bed trail near the Jones Falls footbridge. About halfway from here to the parking lot and just above a swampy area between the trail and Jones Falls, I look away from the rocks and take in the green shoots of lillies and skunk cabbage below, incipient leaves sprouting from bushes, and the incessant chirping of a myriad frogs. However wonderful that spring is upon us, it will lead to briars and brambles making the barrens above less pleasurable to navigate.

* For the past several weeks, time I normally devote to Mineral Bliss was spent researching and writing two articles for The Vug , one on Maryland carrollite, another on Maryland wulfenite. It is expected that they will be on line and in print by April 16, in time for the Rochester Mineralogical Symposium.

Chalcotrichite at Bare Hills in 2011?

2011-03-08T23:26:00.000Z

I confess to having in the past mistaken micro-organic materials for minerals and only hope that this post wont give some readers occasion to question my credibility. Regardless, no other field collecting find of my life ever excited me as much as the red fibers shown in the photomicrograph above. Could they be anything other than chalcotrichite? Unfortunately, what you see, which measured about a millimeter across, disappeared almost completely as I tried using my forefinger to attach a gummed white arrow to the matrix to note its presence. After recently collecting the specimen near Mt. Washington in Baltimore City just across the line from Baltimore County and discovering the apparent chalcotrichite in it two days later under the scope, to have accidentally trashed it horrified me. I'd like to think this wasn't really chalcotrichite. After all, the rock had bounced around unwrapped in a dirty knapsack for three days before it ever got near the scope, so how likely is it that my clumsy finger, while gently attempting to affix an arrow, would be enough to cause such crystals to vanish?

My initial inclination was to retain the original title I'd planned for this post: Field Collecting Malachite and Chalcopyrite in Baltimore City during March, 2011. Finding the respective specimens shown at left along the banks of a stream about ten yards east of Smith Avenue at the Baltimore City/County line was plenty worthy of a post. Less than a quarter mile to the northwest of where these pieces were collected, the little stream had passed under an entrance to the Bonnie Ridge Apartments. Until about 50 years ago, that entrance was the site of the only remaining dumps from the long covered over Bare Hills Copper Mine, which closed for the final time late in the 19th century.

The malachite probably formed from solutions between water in the stream and ores of copper over which the water flowed. The chalcopyrite, which was the primary ore that had been mined nearby, had obviously washed down to where I found it. With nowhere to park on Smith Avenue, I'd hiked in from a nearby parking lot. The area was overgrown enough to be treacherous, even with minimal early March vegetation. Where the ground wasn't covered with brambles, branches, or soil, most prevalent amongst the few visible rocks were the meta-gabbro and hornblende schist that years before had borne numerous ore veins. The malachite, however, was on a rock mostly comprised of feldspar. I discovered the chalcopyrite upon breaking into three pieces a brown rock that looked unlike the others present around the stream area. The apparent chalcotrichite later showed up under the scope near the edge of a cracked open face of one of those three chunks.

According to the 1940 Natural History of Maryland publication, Minerals of Maryland, by Ostrander and Price, species known to occur at the Bare Hills Copper mine were as follows: amphibole-anthophyllite, cummingtonite, actinolite, tremolite, octahedral magnetite in steatite, magnetite in large masses, malachite, azurite, radiated epidote, honblende crystals, calcite, milky quartz, talc, stilbite, laumontite, albite, chlorite, chalcopyrite, bornite, feldspar, garnet, chalcanthite, blue quartz, chalcocite, chrysocolla---and in the "Lee Collection," radiated actinolite and covellite. No mention was made of cuprite, much less of chalcotrichite, which is a variety of cuprite. To the best of my knowledge, chalcotrichite has never been reported in Maryland.

My first ten minutes of examining the chalcopyrite rocks under the scope revealed some amphibole rock, a bit of massive magnetite, and some plates that looked a bit like covellite but probably weren't. What had most interested me to this point was the crystal (shown at 40x) at right. Chalcocite or hornblende, perhaps?

Then I spied that blotch of red, zeroed in on it at 40x, photographed it, and showed the specimen to my wife. By now it was time for dinner through which I all but pinched myself to be certain this chalcotrichite thing wasn't a dream. After dinner, I excitedly returned to the mineral room and began my attempt to affix the gummed arrow near the little red spot that was barely discernable without a loupe.

After two tries at getting the arrow to stick, the little red spot was no longer visible. I spent the next hour repeatedly looking at the rock under the scope and also scanning the tabletop with my loupe. The only remaining trace of anything similar is pictured at left. The colour and thickness of that one little thread resemble to the hundreds that were there earlier. However, I question whether the apparent curvature could might be something other than a crystal. That would be less distressing to me than what I think happened. Unfortunately I'll probably never know.

My next move will be to further crack up the three chalcopyrite bearing pieces and examine them under the scope hoping to find more crystals. I'm neither optimistic about what that will reveal, nor enthusiastic about the prospect of trampling through those brambles again.

Jeff Nagy Visits John White

2011-02-28T19:03:00.000Z

Jeffrey W. Nagy, whose work continues with putting together an updated revision of Lawrence R. Bernstein's 1980 publication Minerals of the Washington D.C. Area, is a resident of Damascus, Maryland. John S. White, who among other things, founded Mineralogical Record and served as Curator in Charge of the Smithsonian's Division of Mineralogy from 1964 to 1991, had a hand in the earlier Bernstein original publication. He lives in Stewartstown, PA.

Being in touch with both of them and situated midway between in Baltimore, it was recently my privilege to bring Jeff and John together at John's house just a few miles north of the Pennsylvania-Maryland line. Needless to say they had plenty to chat about as they observed the various suites of minerals in John's collection.

I've always been quite amazed at how John's L shaped mineral room, except for the quartz
cabinet pictured at left, appears almost devoid of minerals on display. Instead, most of his collection is arranged in suites in cabinets where the minerals, including numerous "floater" crystals as well as cabs and cut stones, rest neatly in wooden cases and pull-out drawers. John fashioned most of these himself in a section of his and Merle's garage, which doubles as a woodworking shop. A limited amount of dealer "inventory" in about a dozen cardboard flats fits neatly inside one of several enclosed cabinets lining the east wall. More visible are scores of books relating to mineralogy that fill bookshelves lining much of the wall space. To say the least, it's an impressive setting, the feng shui of which I had limited confidence that my camera could capture.

As John and Jeff shot the breeze and looked at minerals, I was busy positioning and photographing a few selected specimens from a suite that included minerals collected in the Washington, D.C. area. One piece in particular of which I ended up with an amazing and beautiful shot was a dark green prehnite specimen adorned with a few epidote crystals. It was collected at the Fairfax Quarry in Centreville, Virginia, presumably sometime in the late 1970's, by the late and legendary George Brewer. Jeff requested that I refrain from publishing this photograph as well as other pertinent images in favor of having them debut upon release of the new Minerals of the Washington, D.C. Area.

Although Jeff has finished drafting most of the content, he is still in the midst of exploring a handful of localities that were lost in time when the original work was published. As much an historian as a mineral person, Jeff has found evidence in old land records of several likely mining operations in Montgomery County dating to pre-Revolutionary times in locations that might still prove to be accessible. He expects to have completed his research and drafting together with accompanying illustrations, maps, and photographs by the end of 2011.

Jessica Simonoff's Most Recent Prodigious Feat

2011-02-17T13:09:00.000Z

Pictured above at the 2011 Tucson Gem and Mineral Show's February 12 banquet is Friends of Mineralogy National Vice President Allan Young presenting to 12 year old Maryland mineralogical prodigy Jessica Simonff the award for Best Article 2010, entitled Skeletal Galena Crystals from Madan Bulgaria--Natural or Fake? Jessica co-authored this article with Dr. Lance Kearns, Professor, Museum Curator, and SEM Facilty Director at James Madison University.

Such skeletal galena crystals have been prized for several years by collectors who've paid as much as $3,000 for them from presumably similarly duped dealers. As a result of Jessica and Lance's research, the sale of skeletal galena crystals from Madan was banned at the 2011 Tucson Gem and Mineral Show.

The first published suspicion regarding these crystals of which I'm aware was posted on Mindat by Pat Haynes on October 26, 2009. Within less than a year, the resulting thread had generated over 200 posts spanning 10 pages. Providing theoretical input along with Jessica were the likes of Rock Currier, Alfredo Petrov, and far too many other renowned authorities to mention. By April, 2010, and approximately 150 posts, Mindat founder Jolyon Ralph questioned why, with so many opinions, no article had been written and published regarding the authenticity of these specimens.

Having been active in the discussions, Jessica endeavored to borrow some (still very expensive) specimens to photograph under the microscope and test using nondestructive techniques. Edward Rosenzweig of Edwards Minerals loaned her several samples, which were provided to him as naturally occurring, to study. On July 30, she had put together and posted on Mindat a link to a photographically illustrated article on the findings of her research. The post also noted that she had obtained permission to use an SEM (scanning electron microscope) and XRD (X-ray diffraction) machine for further experimentation.

Jessica followed through during the ensuing months on Mindat with continuing updates to the article. When she and Dr Kearns eventually used the SEM to examine the two of the pieces that were being sold as natural, they saw conclusive evidence that the specimens they had studied were indeed man-made fakes. They wrote up their research in the December Mineral News article, and Jessica subsequentally submitted a post to Mindat with the results and SEM photos, completing her article.

Jessica has other irons on the fire. One will be a presentation on her research in early April at the Atlantic Micromount Conference in Elkridge, Maryland. She has also received informal feedback that an abstract submitted for presentation at the Rochester Mineral Symposium later that month will be accepted and ultimately published in Rocks and Minerals. In addition, mineralogy personnel at the Smithsonian have invited her to present her work. And there is more to come. Stay tuned.

Tucson 2011: the First Day

2011-01-29T07:46:00.000Z

Very quickly, an explanation of what's happened to Mineral Bliss since its post of Nov. 22, 2010: The author has been using time previously set aside for blogging to engage a private tutor to help enhance his skills at mineral photography. So why isn't the title photograph for this post more relevant? The first Friday of Tucson action (Jan. 28 this year), leading up to the "Big Show" at the Convention Center (Feb. 10-14), was for me more about meeting top mineral people from all over the world and seeing first hand as many "new" minerals as possible. Plenty of time for photographing them later.

Although over a dozen shows were underway throughout town today in various motels, tents, and lots, by far, the greatest number of dealers and the widest selection of minerals were at one location. That was the sprawling Hotel Tucson City Center at 475 North Granada, historically referred to as Inn Suites. I was there by lunchtime and ventured no farther. Interestingly, the word on line and in the Tucson EZ-Guide proclaims the that this and three other shows organized by Martin Zinn were getting underway the following day, Saturday, Jan. 29. All the better for me that the action had begun a day early.

Though a significant minority of dealers had yet to set up or were in the process of doing so, the level of activity was overwhelming. Prices were all over the map with plenty of bargains. This first Friday is always a good day for buyers seasoned enough to recognize undervalued minerals and scarf them up. In some instances, these buyers are also dealers who over the next two weeks sell their purchases to other dealers around town at ever higher prices. This goes on to the point that by the time they make it to the Convention Center in two weeks, some of these specimens have changed hands and price several times. Note that bargains are to be scored as well on the final day of the show (Feb. 13) from dealers prone to unload some of their inventory quite inexpensively rather than pack it for transport to wherever.

The most attractive values I encountered today were being offered by Ray Grant of Raycin Minerals from Chandler Arizona. Lots of great material here including numerous thumbnails, especially from renowned Arizona localities such as the 79 Mine, Old Reliable Mine, and amazing yet very reasonably priced small wulfenite specimens from the Red Cloud Mine. Among the higher end dealers were the likes of Collectors Edge from Boulder Colorado, Crystal Classics from UK, and its US Counterpart Kristalle. If the prices being asked in these rooms were steep enough to boggle the mind, their dealers are among the most reliable, respected, and successful in the world with customers willing to pay for the best. Sometimes the most subtle distinctions in quality or aesthetics tend to justify exponential differentiations in price.

Another reason this first day is so special for me relates to a penchant for rare and obscure minerals. There are only so many to go around, and every day, especially today, the selection will diminish. One rare species dealership I visited was Middle Earth/Cal Neva from Sparks, Nevada. Plenty of thumbnails here as well as the widest selection of Mount Saint Hilaire material I've ever observed being sold in one place at the same time. Famous in the rare minerals niche is Jaroslav Hyrsl from the Czech Republic, who co-authored with Jan Bernhard the already classic book Minerals and Their Localities. While mingling about later in Jaroslav's room, I recognized and introduced myself to Jordi Fabre, the iconic Spanish dealer/collector, and producer of the renowned international FMF Minerals Forum. Earlier while walking through the courtyard, I'd passed Jordi's room where a sign on the closed door noted he'd begin selling on Tuesday, Feb. 1. "It's just too much to have to be in that room every day all that time," Jordi explained.

From Jaroslav Hyrsl's room, I headed to that of the German dealer Gunnar Farber. As with the selection of Hyrsl, the extent of rare and newly discovered minerals being offered was sufficient for more than a year's worth of weekly Mineral Bliss posts. Here are just a few particularly intriguing ones that were particularly unusual or recently discovered:

Chromian lawsonite from Cape Marmari, Grammata Bay, Syros Island, Greece.
Blue nyboite crystals with crystallized jadeite also from the same Syros Island locality.
Askagenite from Askegan Quarry, Filipstad, Varmland, Sweden.
Anatacamite (epitactical triangular wings on atacamite) from Lavendida mine, Caracoles, Sierra Gorda II Region, Chile.
Strontiodresserite from Dielengraben, Stein, Drautal, Gailtaler Alpen, Carinthia, Austria.
Vertumite from the Eifel Mountains, Bellenberg, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany.
Anhydrite crystals!!! from Kohnstedt Quarry, Niedersacswerfen, Nordhausen, Harz, Thuringia, Germany.
Ammineite, blue crystals on halite, from Pabellon de Pica, Chanabaya, Punta Colina, Iquique I Region, Chile.
Mejillonesite from the Mejillones Mine, Mejillones, Chile, which Gunnar discovered.

While enroute to Gunnar's room, I encountered Alfredo Petrov, who on quick visual inspection, can identify a species as well as anyone in the game. Deliberately placed in my handbag to show him was a specimen labeled teallite acquired several years ago from an old collection that I suspected was actually frankeite. Alfredo assured me I was right.

Alfredo's room was the last that I visited before leaving. Since I'd paid $5 a few years ago for my chunk of frankeite mislabeled as teallite, it heartened me to observe that Alfredo had for sale a frankeite with a price tag of $320. Alfredo's specimen, however, was attractive enough to represent the better value. He also was selling a huge specimen of fluoropotassic-hastingsite (type and only locality). Last September, I acquired from Alfredo what he believed---and knowing him I would take that to mean is the largest piece of this rare amphibole known to exist. However, what he had for sale today was larger, so I asked him about it. "Yes," said Alfredo, " it's a bigger rock, but it's mostly magnetite. You've still got what has the biggest amount of fluoropotassic-hastingsite." Alfredo's big rock was priced $180, which is more than the $145 that's being asked for that "largest piece piece in existence" being offered by my Jake's Minerals. Three days from now, if it's still unsold, that asking price at Jake's minerals will be going up to $220.

Tomorrow, I leave Tucson for visits to Death Valley, Los Angeles, and San Francisco before returning for the big show at the Convention Center. Expect the first of at least two more Tucson related Mineral Bliss posts to appear the second week of February.

Mr. Tyson's Chrome Pit

2010-11-22T23:29:00.000Z

Perhaps Maryland's best known claim to fame in the mineral world is having been one of the world's leading producers of chromium in the mid 1800's. Responsible for most of the production was Isaac Tyson, the Baltimore businessman who after having studied mineralogy in France, discovered and began to mine chromite on his farm at Bare Hills in Baltimore County near the Baltimore City Line.

Soon thereafter, he was mining it not only at Bare Hills and Soldiers Delight in Baltimore County as well as at various locations in Harford and Cecil County. Less chronicled was the chrome mining activity for which he was responsible in Montgomery County near Patuxent State Park.

Ostrander and Price's Minerals of Maryland, published by the Natural History Society of Maryland in 1940, recognizes the Etchinson Chrome Mine as having "not been worked in many years," and notes "little of interest remaining at the site.” Minerals known to have occurred there were listed as "chromite, chrome ore (a chrome spinelo-picotite?) green chrome tourmaline, fuchsite, green margarite, rutile in reddish brown encrustaions, magnesite, amesite? manesioferrite?. (Shannon)." The Etchinson Mine also received mention in Lawrence R. Bernstein's 1980 Maryland Geological Survey publication, Minerals of the Washington, DC Area as having been "completely paved over." Also noted was the nearby "Lyde-Griffith property," referenced by footnote to Heyl and Pearre from a 1960 U.S Geological Survey Bulletin. Bernstein noted that the "mineralogy of the deposit was not described but probably similar to that at the Etchinson Mine, as both are in the same serpentine body."

Jeff Nagy, who is several years into updating Bernstein's work, visited the site of the Etchinson Mine several years ago and noted a nearby outcrop of serpentinite rock. Around the same time, he also found his way to the site of the Lyde-Griffith property.

Through research entailing nearly as much history as mineralogy, Nagy has determined that circa 1830, Washington Waters leased this locality from its property owner. Later, the owner sued Waters when the market for chromium declined drastically and Waters was unable to pay royalties. The contractual dispute focused on whether or not Waters was obligated to remove the ore he had mined from the property or simply from the ground.

By no later than 1869, the locality was known as Mr. Tyson's Chrome Pits. Nagy believes that an underground mine once existed and that Isaac Tyson's company operated the locality through pit mining. When Nagy last attempted to visit the locality during late spring, the briars and brambles were too thick to penetrate.

On a recent mid-November Friday, I had the privilege of accompanying Jeff on his second visit. Though even in late fall, the briars and brambles were formidable, we were able to access the remains of four pits, each between 300 and 400 feet long. They are south of the Patuxent River near where woodlands extending from Patuxent State Park meet a grazing field on private property. The only rocks not covered by more than a century's accumulation of soil and leaf mold were limited to an approximately 10 foot by 10 foot area.

Amidst these rocks were talc schist, quartz, and a grainy serpentinite. We found little that interested either of us with the exception of one handsize piece of quartz bearing a single quite weathered most likely cubic metallic brownish black metallic crystal about five millimeters in diameter that was embedded in quartz. Its identification stumped us a bit. For now, I'm going to guess "chrome ore," namely that "chrome spinelo picotite."

Though we had hoped to check out the nearby site that was once the Etchinson Chrome Mine, our time was running short. Of more interest to us was "an adjacent hill just south of the Etchinson site, " where Minerals of Maryland had noted that "quartz crystals are found in the soil." No mention of this hill appeared in Bernstein's book, and Jeff Nagy may have been unaware of it on his earlier visit. I hope that Jeff will take me along when he returns to check it out.

Maryland's Embarrassing State Gemstone

2010-10-29T00:45:00.000+01:00

Six years have passed since then Governor Erlich signed legislation naming "Patuxent River Stone" as Maryland's State Gem. Meanwhile, many who are prominent in state gemological, geological, paleontological and mineralogical circles continue to express outrage. While the stone itself has merits, the grievances focus on a misleading official description of Patuxent River Stone as both agate and dinosaur bone. "An embarrassment to the State of Maryland" is the kindest language I've heard regarding the misrepresentation of a material that is in truth quartzite. Even the Maryland State Archives erroneously describe Patuxent River Stone as "agate, a cryptocrystalline form of quartz."

A look through the microscope at the slab of Patuxent River Stone featured in our title picture makes clear that despite appearances, it is neither agate nor fossilized dinosaur bone. Immediately apparent is an obviously textural rather than cryptocrystalline structure of sandstone metamorphosed into quartzite through tectonic compression.

The official web site (link provided in first paragraph) for this material, which labels it as Patuxent River AGATE, proclaims that a state gemstone should be beautiful, colourful, take a fine polish, be able to be fashioned into jewelry, and very notably be "rare but findable, existing in sufficient quantity to allow for a reasonable source of supply for local artisans." Agatized dinosaur bone is nowhere near that abundant in Maryland if it exists at all. For that matter, as the person responsible for the Maryland Minerals web site, I've never seen any kind of agate that was collected in Maryland and am unaware of any literature regarding its occurrence in the state, except in conjunction with "Patuxent River Stone."

Top help me research this post, a prominent local gem cutter drove me to a pebbly stream not far from I-95 in White Marsh. Twenty years ago, most of this area consisted of sand pits where quartzite pebbles were extensively quarried for construction material. White Marsh lies on the Arundel formation, which runs diagonally through the center of Maryland extending even to the Eastern Shore. Dinosaur fossils have been reported in Arundel Formation deposits, but they consist of neither agate nor quartzite.

We crawled about the stream bed on hands and knees looking for
colourful quartzite pebbles. They were scarce enough that searching for them proved an enjoyable but very easy challenge. Pictured at right are a few that we picked up. A presence of iron speaks for their colour, and no doubt they would polish beautifully.

Meanwhile, Maryland, unlike numerous other states, does not have a State Mineral or a State Rock. Since Maryland was once the world's second leading producer of chromium, a good choice for State Mineral could be chromite. Yet, what better choice for a Maryland State Rock than quartzite? And who is to say that quartzite should not qualify as the State gem if sufficiently graded for colour?

So why does our State Gem continue to be incorrectly touted as agatized dinosaur bone? " Those not into the hobbies could care less," my gem cutter friend replied." Then, requesting for political reasons that I not use his name, he added: "To guys like you and me it's an embarrassment, and even worse, you've got all this false information being passed on to school kids."

Southwestern Maine Gem and Mineral Localities

2010-10-18T21:05:00.000+01:00

Two days of a recent New England vacation largely devoted to food, foliage, and hiking, were booked to collect minerals in Maine. On the first of those days, rain fell in torrents that made seeing for more than a few yards while driving a challenge. Needless to say, it deterred me from collecting, but not from six hours of driving through the southwestern part of the state to plan an itinerary for once the weather cleared. This driving ultimately spared me from time-consuming wrong turns the next day, when conditions had become conducive to collecting. They were so bad that first day that I even managed to drive by, look for, and not even see the little sign along Route 26 near the high school heralding the Poland Mining Camps.

Founded by the late Irving "Dudy" Groves (1919-2005) and taken over by his widow, the engaging and hospitable Mary Groves (left), it is the ultimate destination for anyone serious about collecting the gem and mineral bounty for which Oxford and Adroscoggin Counties are renowned. Though tourmaline is king, a myriad mines, prospects and quarries in this part of Maine offer up a vast variety of minerals desirable for just about any collecting niche. My friends Robert and Stephanie from the Baltimore Mineral society spent a week at Poland Mining Camps during the summer of 2009. They were kind enough not only to load me up not only with printed material about the local mineralogy, but also facilitate my visit to the camp and an opportunity to confer with Mary Groves.

My agenda was to visit the Tamminem and Harvard Mines mentioned in our Mineral Bliss post of August 15, 2009, which was based on a talk by Nancy Millard at the recent Atlantic Coast Gem and Mineral Show in West Springfield, Massachusetts. The two pegmatite localities are in walkable proximity to one another and among a minority of localities in this region that are open and accessible to the public. Even before I arrived at Poland Mining Camps, Mary had placed a call to assure that I would be welcome to collect.

While both The Tamminem and Harvard Mines are destinations for the Camp's field trips, they have been mined to a greater extent than other localities that Poland Mining Camp either owns (Mt. Apatite is one of them) or enjoys exclusive access. Information that also lists the minerals known to have been collected at each locality and even includes a map is available through a link on the the Poland Mining Camps' web site. A Collector's Guide to Maine Mineral Localities by W. B. Thompson, D.L. Joyner, R.G. Woodman, and V.T. King is also available on line, courtesy of the State of Maine. It offers additional information that includes specific instructions on how to reach many of the localities.

From the Poland Mining Camps, I found my way to the parking area for Tamminem and Harvard Mines on Richardson Hollow Road less than a mile from its intersection with Greenwood Road in Oxford County. The Tamminem Mine is but a short walk downhill from the parking area. It yielded me plenty of unremarkable schorl and some decent clevelandite. Because Mary had specifically instructed me to look for it, my most rewarding find was the micro blue apatite pictured at right. Knowledgeable collectors with properly trained eyes stand a chance of finding rare pollucite crystals here along seams in petalite, which though said to be common, can be difficult to visually differentiate from feldspar.

A visit to the Harvard Mine entails a hike of about a half mile up the side of a mountain on a blazed trail that sets out directly across across Richardson Hollow Road from the parking lot. Although known for having produced fine fluorapatite crystals as well as some lustrous cassiterite, I found not a trace of either. A magnificent view and abundant pickings of showier schorl than at the Tamminem along with plenty of reasonably attractive almandine crystals made collecting at the Harvard a lot more fun than the Tamminem.

My destination for the evening was North Conway, New Hampshire, to which I headed via a circuitous route that passed not far from the Lord Hill Mine near Stoneham in Oxford County. It is open to the public and is known for giant quartz crystals, large blue as well as colourless topaz crystals, and also many of the rare phosphate species for which the Palermo Mine in North Groton New Hampshire is famous. Getting to Lord Hill entails navigating a potentially confusing array of dirt roads and then hiking for a little more than a mile. I did not reach the vicinity of Stoneham until too late to get to the mine and back by dark.

Next summer, I hope to return to this part of Maine and if a long enough time frame proves feasible, look forward to the Poland Mining Camps being my base. Either way, a visit to Lord Hill will be on the agenda.

The Franklin-Sterling Hill Gem and Mineral Show

2010-09-27T00:22:00.000+01:00

The 53rd Annual Franklin-Sterling Gem and Mineral Show, at least during my four mid-day hours there on Saturday, Sept. 25, drew serious mineral aficionados from far and wide. The most extensive action was out-of-doors. Ambiance was friendly, almost festive.

My only previous visit to the Franklin, Sterling Hill, Ogdensburg area in New Jersey was three years ago while heading home after squeezing as many different New England pleasures as possible into a week. All too briefly, I had toured the great Franklin Mineral Museum with its 5,000 minerals, then hammered away at a few rocks on the dumps below. Two years later, I became more intrigued with Franklin/Sterling Hill after inexpensively acquiring the micromounts pictured in the photomicrographs at left. Note that the accompanying contents of their labels declare combinations of such incredibly rare Franklin treasures as jarosewichite, flinkite, sclarite, and gageite. Do NOT hold me accountable for these identifications. I'm hoping that knowledgeable attendees at the 54th Desautels Micromount Symposium next weekend (Oct. 2, and 3) will share their thoughts. Meanwhile, input from readers relating to accuracies/inaccuracies are welcomed and solicited.

Before heading to Milford, PA, to spend Friday night, I first detoured through the Franklin, Sterling Hill, Ogdensburg area to gain bearings. At Franklin School, the show's site, a few vehicles were parked in a closed off parking lot. One was a van with its open rear hatch encircled by hunched over men, most likely dealers. In less than an hour, you could have found me hunched over the Bar Louis beneath the Hotel Fauchere in Milford, sipping a cocktail made with rye, stone pine liqueur, apricot cordial, pine buds, and lemon oil while waiting for my dinner of codfish stew and watercress/duck salad to arrive.

Saturday morning, dealer tables lined the paved area behind the school and extended well into the field adjacent to it. Nothing fancy, but reasonable prices and plenty of Franklin and Sterling Hill material for those passionate collectors who specialize in this niche---and plenty else of course. Indoors, the dealers were equally busy and would probably have been busier except for the unseasonably summery weather outside.

There was additional action at the Sterling Hill Mining Museum: it's garage sale with areas of $3 tables, $5 tables, and $10 tables. Most of the specimens laid out on these tables in old boxes and dusty plastic cases appeared to have long been in storage. Many were sans labels. Amidst a lot of junk were numerous true bargains awaiting collectors and low end dealers aware of what to look for.

Dinner with an auction was slated for Saturday night with the show resuming on Sunday. I missed all of that. So did Fred Parker, the only other Baltimore mineral person I encountered. He had set up shop with other dealers along the paved area behind the school. Later in the afternoon, he planned to leave in order to work a table closer to home the next next day at the Gemcutters Guild of Baltimore's 46 Annual Atlantic Coast Gem and Mineral Expo at the Howard County, Maryland Fairgrounds,

That's where I was at some point this final weekend of September the last two years and would have been again on Sunday morning except for not wanting to share a cold that came on overnight. On Sunday afternoons, however, I'm refusing to allow minerals to usurp whatever the Baltimore Ravens are up to, at least for the time being.

Unique Collector: Amazing Breathtaking Collection

2010-09-19T21:54:00.000+01:00

Words fail me in describing this recent interlude from a family visit to San Francisco. It all started back in Baltimore when my friend Harold Levey played for me a DVD commemorating Jack Halpern's 90th birthday. Loaned to Harold by our mutual friend John S. White, it was about a man proud of his "addiction to beauty." In addition to an endless variety of roses and orchids gracing not only the entire back yard of his West Portal home, but that of a next door neighbor, is his mineral collection. To simply say that it's "world class" is an understatement.

The sole premise of this extensive collection is beauty on a level exceeding that of any other assemblage of minerals I've enjoyed the privilege of viewing. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, you say? This collection clearly goes far beyond any such cliche. Aesthetically, Jack Halpern's collection is mind-boggling. If the tanzanite that graces the cover of the September-October, 2009 Mineralogical Record and the California gold next to it speak for the high end, nearly all the myriad specimens (catalog numbers approaching 4,000) are comparably breathtaking in different ways. I didn't observe a single piece that failed to impress.

Despite appearances of extravagance, this isn't a collection that was driven simply by money. Over lunch in a nearby restaurant to which we drove in Jack's aging Buick, he even shared that his income was "not much." He credits the financial acumen of his late wife, Leslie, in managing what spare cash they accumulated over the years for his ability to purchase such minerals. Like the $15,000 home now worth nearly a million dollars that they purchased together over a half century ago, the blue chip stocks into which that money went fared just as well.

None of the specimens in this amazing collection are labeled. Labels would usurp additional display space and distract from the beauty of the minerals. Instead, all are marked with numbers pursuant to which they're catalogued in files bearing current as well as any previous labels that previously accompanied them. In glassine pouches with these labels are the names and contact information of potential future owners who one day will be given the first opportunity to buy specimens in which they have expressed interest,

Over the years, Jack has donated many fine minerals to the much renowned California Academy of Sciences, from which he laments that many of the best have been pilfered. He also laments that this museum's wonderful mineral collection is neither on display nor are photographs available for viewing. "I've written to the chairman of their board about this," Jack informed me, "but nothing has happened." During this recent trip, I had planned to contact the California Academy of Sciences with hopes of devoting an upcoming Mineral Bliss post to the Academy's collection only to be informed that "environmentally controlled cases must be constructed" before the minerals could be shown.

Perhaps I could have persisted and showed up at the California Academy of Sciences to inquire in person. However, after after seeing Jack Halpern's collection, I suspect the fruits of such an effort would at the very best have proven anti climatic.

Minerals at Roanoke, Virginia Farmers Market

2010-09-09T20:05:00.001+01:00

In just about any city or town, I tend to link the presence of a downtown farmers market to all that's positive regarding its vibes, heartbeat, and bounty. My first impression, while typically paramount, was particularly so on a recent Saturday morning in Roanoke, Virginia. Located front center at the intersection of Campbell and Market Streets and visible from more angles than any other location in the Roanoke Farmers Market was Ben Crooks and his Hanging Rock Mineral and Fossil Company. That’s Ben wearing the blue T shirt in our title picture. Both visually and verbally, he presents a colorful persona, but requested not to be photographed at closer range.

If the weather is good, you can count on seeing Ben for sure on Fridays and Saturdays, and often on Thursdays when the crowd size picks up in October. He’s been at it for 14 years, having previously been “a geologist working as a mining inspector at quarries, coal mines---if you put a hole in the side of a hill, I was there.” His selection of worldwide minerals and fossils, mostly in
flats, includes its share of specimens collected by Crooks himself in Virginia and North Carolina. He sells them at bargain prices.

The hitch is that not a single specimen is accompanied by a label. "We did that one year," he tells me, "and it just got expensive." Somewhat more to his credit, he added: "We try to price a lot of stuff so kids can buy it. Kids are 75 per cent of my business. A lot of what's here goes for 50 cents and on up from there." For sure he's doing more than most of us mineral people to lure youngsters into a constructive hobby that we all wish would engage them in greater numbers.

Despite no labels, Ben's prices were too reasonable for me to resist making a few purchases, while taking notes on his verbal information regarding their localities. You may have noticed how more time than usual has elapsed since the last Mineral Bliss post. That's because I've been trying to reach Ben by telephone---he doesn't do computers or email---to confirm the contents of my notes. As best I can decipher from them, the two pieces at left, running top to bottom were given as peridot and dog tooth calcite, both collected near the village of Copper Hill in Floyd County, Virginia. Though not yet tested, the latter piece looks to me more like sphene or axinite/ferro-axinite. Neither R.V. Dietrich's Minerals of Virginia nor MINDAT notes a presence of any of the aforementioned minerals in Floyd County. Thus it would seem that either I misread the notes scrawled into my pocket sized day-timer---something that happens all too often---or that Ben is in on a very significant Virginia find.

No less fascinating to me were the two slabs of fluorite pictured below at right. As Ben tells it, while driving through Cherokee, North Carolina a few years ago, he found himself behind a truck that was dispersing road ballast. Amidst the rocks being scattered were chunks fluorite of which these were pieces. Ben does not know where it was quarried. With a wink, he confesses: "I stole about 200 pounds of it."

Ben also had several boxes of doubly terminated Virginia quartz crystals resembling Herkimer diamonds such as shown at left. Most were quite large for the genre with a few scepters thrown in. He claims to have collected them from the wash in a gully near Bath County, Virginia. Of less eye candy appeal, but great for lapidary enthusiasts were extensive quantities of massive Virginia blue quartz being sold at giveaway prices. "It's all over the place around Boone's Mill in Franklin County, Virginia," Ben told me, and I feel confident that my notes recorded this bit of information correctly.

Discovering Quartz Crystals Near Burkittsville, Maryland

2010-08-30T22:59:00.000+01:00

Increasingly when driving, I’ve taken to pulling over when feasible and safe for a quick look at roadcuts, rockpiles, construction sites, and whatever else relating to rocks arouses my curiosity. The practice hasn’t yet led to many interesting finds.

This past Friday, however, during a quick trip to Roanoke, Virginia, I enjoyed the good fortune of finding myself parked adjacent to a field where the soil yielded a few quartz crystals. The original attraction had been the presence of several small piles of excavated rocks and dirt in the northwest quadrant where Route 340 meets Route 17 (Burkittsville Road) in Frederick County, Maryland. Burkittsville is the named locality for some of the most spectacular quartz crystals I’ve ever seen from Maryland, such as the specimen pictured in the image below at left. Collected many decades ago, it is currently in the collection of Fred Parker. Although the specific spot in or near Burkittsville that yielded it is a big question mark, I know that Fred and others have collected near Burkittsville in recent years. Fred has shared two significant pieces of information about the area, both which were quoted in a previous Mineral Bliss post: first that "quartz crystals are present in the soil beginning near Thurmont and extending soutwesterly (past Burkittsville) almost to Harpers Ferry;" second "that paleozoic sediments beween the Wakefield marble and the precambrian metavolacanic Catoctin and Braddock Ranges are a souce of excellent quartz veins near where these mountains approach the Potomac River." It appeared that I was in a good place to take a look

After exiting off 340 to 17, the presence of a wire fence and a steep embankment ultimately discouraged me from checking out the rockpiles. Meanwhile, the recently harvested cornfield on the other (south/west) side of Burkittsville Road beckoned quite invitingly. Just about all of the rocks protruding from the soil in this field were quartz, an occasional few showing evidence of crystal facets. Within ten minutes, I'd pocketed the approximately one inch long crystals shown at right and a severely plow damaged larger piece of quartz that suggested a previous presence of small crystals, some colorless, some smoky, with many features similar to the one shown and others in the Parker collection.

This was not the first cornfield in the Burkittsville area where I've briefly paced back and forth with my head down in the past year, but it's the first and only that's demonstrated any promise. Though broken rocks speak for a myriad destructive plowings, the general location shows potential and deserves to be explored farther---with permission of course from the landowner.

Checking Out the East Coast's Biggest Show

2010-08-23T00:45:00.000+01:00

Though a far cry from all that goes on in Tucson, the East Coast Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show, which happened August 13-15 at the Better Living Center in West Springfield, Massachusetts, is as big as it gets here in the eastern part of the United States. A great overview of what the show was like, expressed mostly in photos, is the subject of John S. White's 597th post at Jordi Fabre's FMF Minerals Forum and Discussion Board. Photography has to be the quickest and easiest way to communicate the essence of a show. As for me, once through the door and past the 50 case exhibition of minerals from Bill Larson's (Pala International) collection, I quickly became too loaded down with rocks for dealing with the camera.

My favorite of the 50 Bill Larson cases appears in our title image featuring topaz and aquamarine crystals from Burma (Myanmar). Because of a schedule that limited my attendance at the show to Friday, I had to miss Bill's talk on Satruday entitled "Mining, Minerals, & Gems from the Legendary Valley of Rubies, Mogok Burma." Much of the mineralogy---and for that matter the cuisine---from that country fascnates me. I'd be curious if Bill discussed when and how such a seemingly endless supply of great stones get out from under the oppressive military dictatorship that rules.

It's easy enough to imagine, though, how someone could smuggle out the faceted .047 carat johachidolite pictured at left. Purchased from my friend Cassandra at the Dudley Blauwet Gems booth, it reflects my penchant for acquiring species I've never heard of and still intrigues me more than a week later.

Despite emphasizing gems thus far, one of my favorite aspects of the East Coast Mineral, Gem and Fossil Show is its preponderance of mineral specimens over gems and fossils. On occasion and for a variety of reasons, even ugly minerals sometimes grab my interest. Should anyone deem it to be ugly, the reason for my most sizeable purchase this year, the 5" x 5" x 1" chunk of fluoro-potassichastingsite shown below at right, was that Alfredo Petrov convinced me that it could be the biggest specimen ever collected of this rare amphibole. Its type and only known locality is the Greenwood Mine, an old magnetite mine about a three mile hike through the woods near Woodbury Township in Orange County, New York. Fluoro-potassichastingsite is not, by the way, the longest mineral name I've ever encountered. Last October, my eBay store, Jake's Minerals sold a protomanganoferroanthophyllite micromount to a collector in France. Such rare amphiboles are generally not very expensive. Alfredo was also selling a protoanthophyllite piece of which the only known specimens were taken from a Japanese drill core sample. "Much of the value," says Alfredo, "is in getting it tested."

Meanwhile, and as this is written, another Martin Zinn Show, about which people in West Springfield were expressing tremendous enthusiasm, is happening in Cartersville, Georgia. Much as I'd like to be there, my office is in the process of becoming buried under rocks. I don't understand how the collectors and dealers who do so many shows with such frequency find the time to sort out all the booty that inevitably results.

Collecting at Manham Dumps with Pat Haynes

2010-08-16T20:59:00.000+01:00

The second week of of August this year found me, as it did last year, in Massachusetts, spending one day busting rocks on the Manham dumps at Loudville and the next enjoying the East Coast Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show at West Springfield. The stories relating to each of these two days differ from one year to the next, however, especially where Loudville was concerned. Last year the Manham dumps at Loudville rated two separate posts at Mineral Bliss, which were prompted by a taste of beginners luck bordering on the miraculous.

Auspicious beyond luck this year was an opportunity to comb them with a field collector as accomplished they get, namely Pat Haynes. He has to his credit the discovery of eight new minerals and hopes soon to add number nine to the list. With most of his experience having beem in the Western U.S. and often underground, I was interested in how he would approach a locality such as Manham. Though Pat had brought along a 2001 edition of Rocks and Minerals featuring a map that showed where the dumps were, he made a special point of first knocking on a few doors. Although everyone we spoke with was pleasant and friendly, the only directions we received landed us all but lost in the woods. So we hiked back to the car and headed to where I'd parked last year at a pull-off uphill from the bridge on Loudville Road from which a short trail leads to the dumps. With my right hip awaiting replacement in a week, and no loupe, I'd hobbled the hundred yards down to the stream and crawled about the pebbles on the near side for less than an hour. Two of the half dozen I brought home to smash up because they were vuggy, ended up revealing wulfenite, pyromorphite, linarite, and cerussite under the scope.

The vast majority of the Manham Mine dumps are on the other side of the stream, their presence somewhat obscured at first by lush summer woodlands and the contour of the land. It is public land, and collectors are welcomed. Much of the rock cosists of galena bearing quartz that's often crystalized and blessed with numerous vugs occasionally revealing cerussite and anglesite crystals when viewed through the loupe. A few rocks show a bit of earthy light greenish brown weathered pyromorphite (not to be confused with lichen) on their surfaces. Broken open, small amounts of more colorful pyromorphite sometimes occur. When in vugs, the pyromorphite is likely to have formed needle-like crystals as shown in the photomicrograph at left. Wulfenite, linarite, malachite, and chalcopyrite sometimes accompany it. Collecting at the Manham dumps is all about breaking open the different rocks and looking at them through the loupe. I suspect that any dumps that could lie beyond the posted collecting boundaries noted on signs attached to trees are much the same and no more prolific. Though the number of rocks we each broke up and examined was probably about the same, Pat found most of best ones. Chalk that up to to his well trained eye pitted against my red-green colorblindedness.

When we were done, Pat left with two flats , while for the second year in a row, I departed with six rocks in my pocket. Pat chose to keep those that were particularly rich in galena as potential giveaways for students, Boy Scouts, or kids at shows. Were I to bring home that much material on a regular basis, it could end up taking over my house. If I knew where to find enough kids or whomever else to take them, I'd lug home more.

Being but a 20 minute drive from West Springfield, it amazed me how the day before the show, we had these dumps to ourselves. A collector named Dan from Texas, who had driven over from his summer home in Maine showed up for a while, arriving and leaving with only his hammer. He expressed more interest in exploring the area than looking for micro-minerals. Having mentioned that smithsonite was one of his favorite minerals, he joined us for a couple minutes to check out a splash of sphalerite Pat had uncovered in a piece of quartz. I would observe the next day at the show, which will be covered in the next Mineral Bliss post that Dan wasn't kidding us about his interest in smithsonite.

I am truly grateful for localities like this, where people are free to collect without having to pay fees and can collect interesting minerals. Signs attached to trees announce the kind of rules---no explosives, no commercial collecting, use hand tools and have fun---that the collectors who visit obviously respect. One rule states: "If collected samples are displayed or publicized, we want attribution to the New England Forestry Foundation." You've got it, and thanks again.

Back to Asheville and on to Little Pine

2010-08-07T14:21:00.000+01:00

My first order of business on Saturday, July 24, was to maneuver through the ongoing merriment in the streets of Asheville to visit Rusty James at the Cornerstone Minerals tent. It was on the sidewalk less than a block away from the Cornerstone Minerals store at Lexington and Walnut. The jewelry here along with plenty of relatively inexpensive rough gems and minerals, some with metaphysical connotations, was selling brisquely. They were in a different league, however, from the ajoite and papagoite included quartz crystals from the Messina Mine, Limpopo Province, Transvaal, South Africa, that Rusty had waiting for me to check out down the street at his store. He was too busy to leave his tent right then, which worked out just fine. Mad Tea Party was playing "ukebilly" music but two blocks away at the Haywood Stage. That's Ami Worthen, Asheville's ukelele rock star, in the picture at right.

Two hours later, enough people were staffing the Cornerstone tent for Rusty to accompany me to the store, which was almost as busy as the tent had been. From under the counter he pulled out several flats from which I purchased two small ajoite included crystals , one loose, the other in matrix. both relatively free of the difficult to remove white material that frequently encrusts them. Rusty has been to South Africa four times to purchase crystals from the owner of the mine. On his most recent visit this past December, he received permission to dig and believes he's the only American ever granted that privilege. Ajoite and papagoite included quartz crystals occur nowhere else on earth. They command astronomically high prices that could go much higher, and Rusty questions how much longer the Messina Mine wil be able to continue producing them.

With business to deal with back in Baltimore on Tuesday, I left Asheville on Sunday early enough for a visit to the renowned Little Pine Garnet Mine (almandine), in Haywood County approximately 25 miles northwest of Asheville. Rick James Jacquot's book Rock, Gem, and Mineral Collecting Sites in Western North Carolina provided good directions for getting to the parking area for the mine on Robert's Branch Road. Immediately past the parking area, the road forks. Blocking the road heading left was a sign stating that the garnet mine was closed and could be visited by appointment only. Therefore, I followed the main road to the right hoping to reach some dumps the book had mentioned and soon found myself heading up the driveway to the home of a farmer. A third road, overgrown enough this time of year that its presence hardly seemed apparent at first, heads from between the other two roads 100 yards into the woods to these dumps. Once there, I managed to dig from the top three inches of pleasingly soft soil a few loose crystals similar the one pictured below at right.

To make arrangements to visit the Little Pine Garnet Mine, collectors should first go to the Sandy Bottom Trail Rides establishment reached by turning from Little Pine Road onto Caney Fork Road a short distance north of its intersection with Roberts Branch Road. The people there couldn't have been nicer. After I signed a waiver, they readily granted me permission to visit the mine.

Without so much as a flashlight, I did little more than stand at the entrance to look inside the mine. My impression was that even with proper equipment, going in further could be problematic for one without experience. Every inch of the walls and ceilings that I could see had been worked and showed markings where crystals had been extracted. Rusty James' associate Greg, pictured next to Rusty and wearing a blue T shirt in our image from the Cornerstone minerals tent, had informed me that as recently as two years ago, he had chiseled some attractive crystals from the walls of a little "crow's nest" just above and to the right of the mine entrance. Perhaps not for the younger and surely more limber Greg, but for the likes of me, attempting to climb up there and whack away with a sledge hammer and chisel could very likely spell big trouble. Therefore, I opted instead to crawl around and dig amidst the schist and soapstone in the dumps immediately adjacent to the mine. While unsuccessful at locating any appealing crystals, either loose or in matrix, I found significant amounts of the kind of rough almandine once mined there to be ground into sand and used as an abrasive for industrial purposes. At different times, the site is said to have been mined for this kind of material as well as gem garnet.

The Little Pine Garnet Mine remains a popular spot for collectors prepared to work underground (or perhaps in that "crow's nest" that Greg mentioned) and willing to undertake a lot of extremely hard work. At this point, I would be curious as to the quality and quantity of what they are able to collect.

Asheville and Beyond

2010-08-01T20:44:00.000+01:00

The Colburn Museum in Asheville, North Carolina was closing for the the next three days in deference to the surrounding gleeful madness of Bele Chere. That was why I beelined it to town via the Blue Ridge Parkway in deference to the joys of digging at one or two of the numerous collecting spots along the more curcuitous route. In early June, I'd snail mailed the Colburn to question whether the straw colored inclusions within the polished quartz stones pictured at left were really cacoxenite. My contention was that they were not cacoxenite; rather they were goethite. It would appear that either they ignored my letter, or I was wrong.

The dubious inclusions are most prominent in the smaller piece at the top, less so in the rounded stone below it. The lower one appears to be material often touted within the metaphysical world as "super seven," and frequently said to bear inclusions of lepidocrocite and various other minerals. Never mind that The Book of Stones by Simmons and Ahsian credits goethite with "past-life recall, connection with Earth, healing through grief, enhanced soul life, and artistic creativity." I should mention that regardless of labeling, both stones are attractive, and nomenclature should have little bearing on their value. My interest in them arose after purchasing a "cacoxenite in quartz" brooch for my wife this past February from a huckster at Electric Park in Tucson.

The following day, Friday, with temperatures hovering near 100 degrees, I left Asheville and Bele Chere to drive 60 miles to Franklin, North Carolina, which was just as hot, to visit its 44th Annual Gemboree. As in the past, this event features four locations quite close to each other. Much as we described it this time last year in Mineral Bliss, it featured few dealers not oriented entirely toward jewelry, gems, and lapidary rather than minerals. At the outdoor location across from the indoor one in the Macon County Community Center, however, I was fortunate enough to find one dealer with an eclectic selection of mineral specimens from old collections at appealing prices. The smithsonite from the 79 Mine near Hayden, Arizona ahown at right is one of several items I purchased from him. It's an old-timer, collected 31 years ago in 1979. Although the dealer knew as well as I did that apple-green (rather than darker green) crystalized (rather than botroydal) smithsonite from this locality is known to be very dear, he was kind enough to sell it to me as part of a volume deal for an extremely attractive price.

My late afternoon arrival back in Asheville allowed for time to catch the Trainwrecks playing their unique version of "dirty funk" at a stage just a block from my hotel. From there it was a five minute walk to Limones at 13 Eagle Street to sip a Maya Margarita made with mezcal, tamarind juice, orange juice, and cointreau followed by a plate of seabass with parsnip puree, haricot vertes, mango salsa, and passion fruit chipotle sauce. I then passed on dessert to walk two blocks south to catch Southern Culture on the Skids close down the day's entertainment.

The next day (Saturday) and night, I spent in Asheville, before leaving the merriment behind on Sunday in time to visit to the Little Pine Garnet Mine in Madison County about twenty miles northwest of town. The next Mineral Bliss post will cover those two days.

A Quick Drive from Baltimore to Asheville

2010-07-26T10:43:00.000+01:00

Much like Jazzfest in New Orleans the end of April, so Bele Chere in Asheville has become my favorite late July destination. My preferred manner of transportation to both cities is to drive---from Baltimore. Doing so provides a rare opportunity to sit still, listen to music, photograph appealing scenery along the way, check out interesting restaurants, and especially make a stop or two related to minerals.

As time permits, I like to spend as much time as possible first on the Skyline Drive and then the Blue Ridge Parkway. Enhancing my trip down the former was a glossy gift shop book entitled Geology along Skyline Drive: A Self-Guided Tour For Motorists, by Robert L Badger.

This book included a trail loaded with remarkable geological phenomena and afforded a great opportunity to monitor the extent of my recovery from last year's hip replacement. It was the 1.2 mile Bearfence Mountain loop with its awesome but reasonably safe rock scramble. Setting out from a trailhead at Mile 56.4, the first several hundred yards reveal rocks that quickly change from sandstone to phyllite to conglomerate to quartzite, until metabasalt takes over just before the scramble begins. That's where some columnar metabasaltic joints, which curiously head out in two different directions raise questions regarding how they were formed millions of years ago. The Bearfence Mountain summit with its wonderful views and numerous comfortable perches for enjoying them is about a third of the way through the scramble and as far as some opt to navigate. Beyond the summit, the oppotunity to scramble continues in a southerly direction blazed by blue markers until reaching the Appalachian Trail. Along the way, a volcanic breccia covers much of the metabasalt. Within the breccia are occasional air vesicles filled with minerals said to include feldspar, hematite, epidote, quartz and chlorite. Visually, they could almost pass for weathered black garnets.

After Bearfence, I next stopped at Mile 74.5 to check out the slickenlines and a few relatively colorful epidote pods adjacent to the Loft Mountain Overlook pulloff. My Skyline Drive geology book described slickenlines as "parallel lines or narrowly spaced shallow grooves formed by the movement of one mass of solid rock over another---commonly found on faults or in zones where the rocks were stressed." They were easy enough to find, and an example of what they look like is shown at left. The epidote pods, at least colourful ones, required a bit more searching Though epidote is common in this part of the Blue Ridge, its presence is often obscured (unless you bust open rocks) by lichens, moss, dirt, and general weathering. The most colourful example I was able to find without breaking open any rocks is shown in the photo at right.

Arriving in Roanoke early enough for dinner meant having to leave Skyline Drive about 50 miles further along before it becomes the Blue Ridge Parkway and then speed west across I-64 for about ten miles then southwest down I-81 for another hundred or so. My dinner was apt reward for this effort. Traveling solo, I ended up sitting at the bar in the Metro Cafe, one of Roanoke's more upscale and envelope pushing dining establishments. What really impressed me---I used to blog about exotic food before moving on to minerals---was that its appetizer menu featured chicken feet. Chicken feet are common fare in New York's or San Francisco's Chinatowns, but even in these cities I have yet to observe them on the menu at a "new American" style restaurant such as the Metro. Messy for sure, and I had to request a finger bowl, but what a great prelude to the BLT featuring pancetta and heirloom tomato slices that followed.

The next morning, inspired by the Falcon Guide book, Best easy day hikes: Blue Ridge Parkway by Randy Johnson, I departed Roanoke via the Blue Ridge Parkway to explore the Rock Castle Gorge hike. Its trailhead is reached by turning left from the Parkway on VA Route 8 at Milepost 165.3 and heading downhill to turn right on VA Route 605, then driving to where it dead ends. Attracting me to this hike was the following quote from Randy Johnson: "Sycamores and copious quartz outcrops are everywhere (the six sided quartz crystals prevalent here reminded residents of castle towers, hence the name of the gorge)." The section of the trail noted for its sycamores and quartz outcrops, however, left me somewhat underwhelmed and hardly enthusiastic about looking for a place to dig. Blame it if you will on a heavy cover of forested vegetation. Soon after returning to my car and reaching I-81, I observed quartz outcroppings that really did seem to be everywhere in the in hilly open fields to my left. Tlhough tempting locations in which to dig, doing so would entail parking illegally along the ramp of this major interstate, climbing a barbed wire fence, trespassing, and moving earth on someone's property in the presence of a myriad motorists, some of them surely police.

Asheville was still 200 miles away. By dark I was checked in at the Skyland Inn near Little Switzerland at Milepost 331. Close by is the North Carolina Mineral Museum, which features mining history much more so than minerals and their localities. Also nearby are resorts, gem oriented gift shops, a couple of salted "gem mines," and some great views. I stayed at the Skyline Inn, an older and somewhat rustic establishment, which comprised all these things in one package along with restaurant and a tiki bar.

Although the Little Switzerland area is completely tourist oriented, the route from here to Asheville along Routes 226 and then 19E passes near more varied and accessible mineral collecting localities than does any other stretch of highway I'm aware of in the United States. There are at least a dozen places to collect, and all the information needed to find them and know what to look for is in the book Rock, Gem, and Mineral collecting Sites in Western North Carolina by Richard James Jacquot, Jr. Depending on the amount of walking necessary, combing two or three of these localities in a day should be realistic. At some point, perhaps this fall, I look forward to returning for a week to check out as many as possible.

The more direct route to Asheville that I took continues to follow the Blue Ridge Parkway. Its scenery is breathtaking in spots, and along the way, a 1.2 mile roundtrip hike to to the Craggy Pinnacle summit from the parking area at Mile 364.5 proved to be an inordinately pleasant a leg stretcher. Aware of 98 degree temperatures in Asheville, my stroll through quasi-Arctic vegetation to a vista where with 360 degree views and 65 degree themperatures couldn't have been more pleasant. Asheville was next. The rest of my trip will be chronicled in the next Mineral Bliss post.

The Masters Mineral Gallery and More

2010-07-18T11:59:00.000+01:00

Long on my mind has been to make the trip to Elizabethtown, PA, for a visit to the Masters Mineral Gallery in the new Lyett Wing of Elizabethtown College's Masters Center for Math and Engineering. It is part of the legacy of Frank Masters, the renowned construction engineer and mineral collector, who funded the building itself and provided numerous specimens from his personal collection for its mineral gallery. Though mineralogy doesn't much figure into the cirriculum at Elizabethtown College, its mineral gallery is delightful space in which to linger.

Walk down the steps from the adjoining lounge area with its comfortable furniture, and sensors light up the elbaite-included quartz from Minas Gerais in the nearest exhibit case. This is one of five free-standing cases. The others each showcase one or two relatively large specimens. The largest holds a three foot cluster of Arkansas quartz crystals. Amethyst geodes and specimens bearing quartz, calcite, and fluorite inhabit the other free-standing cases.

Four much larger wall cases hold the majority of the collection. One case is devoted to different varieties and habits of quartz, another to fluorite. A case filled with worldwide minerals includes a list of the chemical compositions of each species therein both in writing and symbols. Most interesting to me was the case of Pennsylvania minerals. Some of them, for instance the orangish brown nodular goethite from Franklin County, I found to be quite spectacular. Others, such as the Phoenixville pyromorphite, impressed me significantly less.

Regretably, I missed and then learned later about the fluorescent case where at the push of a button, light changing from incandescent to longwave ultraviolet to shortwave ultraviolet cycles over the minerals within. Against a far wall were two more cases, one with a selection of gem materials polished into more spheres, bowls, and eggs than allowed room for labels. Another, devoted to paleontology, featured material ranging from petrified wood to dinosaur eggs.

My favorite aspect of the Masters Gallery was its inviting feng shui. Conveniently, John S. White, the former Curator-in-charge of the Smithsonian's Division of Mineralogy, played a major role in planning, organizing and developing the space, lives halfway between the Gallery and my home in Baltimore. By taking him up on an earlier offer to stop by if in the area, I soon found myself where the feng shui was yet more pleasing. Here the focus was less on the placement of minerals than space for gracious living surrounded by magnificent flower gardens. The neatly kept areas where John and wife Merle, who's Editor-in-Chief of Lapidary Journal, nurture vocation and avocation are present but not apparent.

Later over dinner with John and Merle at a the Blue Heron, a new French bistro in York, PA, John summarized some highlights of his role in developing the Masters Gallery. He related how years earlier, when in London, he had disliked the metal and glass encased mineral display at the British Museum enough to rant about it in an article in Mineralogical Record (of which he was founder and original publisher). That the Masters Gallery also has cabinets of metal and glass reflects John's acumen regarding mistakes to avoid when working with these materials. Another important feature attributable to John is how the minerals in the wall cases are displayed on "steps" covered with fabric to which velcro bottomed labels comfortably attach. John also held forth on the ingenuity of mounts used to display the specimens. They were fabricated by David Graham.

Though not remotely comparable to the number of mineral displays with which John is familiar, I have seen enough of them to form judgmental, if not highly knowledgeable impressions. Many are too cluttered, a few too sparce. Some of America's most renowned exhibits are lighted inadequately to be appreciated. I do not know of an exhibit where the minerals are displayed in a fashion that pleases me more than at the Masters Gallery.

Beach Reading and Catching Up

2010-07-08T17:16:00.000+01:00

Not enough time to read? Give up something to find the time? Is it practical and feasible to do so? Not always. The past couple of summers, a week at the beach has proven for me to be a great opportunity to catch up.

It's that time again, only this year we're not at the beach. Meanwhile, two stacks of reading material neatly piled up on the floor in the corner of my office had both reached a height of over a foot. I recently knocked a couple of inches off by removing about a dozen Mineralogical Record's with articles I had been waiting to revisit.

For a few months last year, Mineral Bliss offered a podcast that attempted to briefly summarize the contents of Mineralogical Record and Rocks & Minerals soon after they arrived through our mail slot. To produce this podcast in a timely fashion, I found myself skimming through these periodicals and moving on before enjoying them in the manner for which they were intended. Ultimately, the podcasting went by the wayside.

Any beach time this summer will not be long enough in any one place for very much reading. However, finding myself with an unexpected block of time during the relentless heatwave that is baking Baltimore, the confines of a well air-conditioned office proved more appealing than nearby beaches for revisiting some of the features in Mineralogical Record that most intrigued me over the past several years going back to July, 2007.

Here are a few highlights:

I've long enjoyed Wendell Wilson's editorials in Mineralogical Record. The one that left the strongest impression was entitled "Photographs: A Priority for Museums" from July-August 2007. It ranted about the myriad specimens stashed away at various museums, never to be seen, admired, studied or researched. Is this what those who donated or bequeathed them intended? Or is it what the museums intended by accepting them? Wilson makes his point as to the value for all concerned that phtographic documentation can provide. Is it that the museums lack the time or human resources? Give me a place to stay and a couple of unwanted specimens to take home, and we can talk about it.
Most collectors have their varied quirks and niches. Vintage micromounts are one of mine. What a pleasure once again to drool over the pictures and re-read the article in the March-April Minrec by Wendell Willson, Rock Currier, Carl Francis, and Sugar White: "George Washington Fiss (1835-1925) and his micromount collections."

The "American Mineral Treasures Issue" of June, 2008 recalled some great memories plus a lot I'd missed when an emergency on the home front mandated an early departure from that year's Tucson Show, which was one of the best, perhaps the best ever. Of course, now both a book as well as a movie have been produced about this amazing exhibit of the known best minerals from the 44 greatest localities in the United States.
The five part series spanning Mineralogical Record's last two editions of 2008 and first three of 2009 by Rock Currier entitled "About Mineral Collecting" is in my opinion a masterpiece. It covers all the bases of the hobby and the different kinds of players involved in it. No way I ever could have described myself as accurately as Rock did, even though we'd never met.
Being from the East Coast, I particularly like the way Mineralogical Record has kept readers abreast of productive localities in New Jersey. There was the Wendell Wilson piece with amazing images from May-June 2007 regarding the magnificent zeolites being collected at Millington traprock Quarry in Somerset County. More recently (November-December, 2009), and soon thereafter (March-April, 2010) appear picture packed articles(zeolites once again) by Frank A. Imbriacco, II covering the Braen Quarry in Passaic County and the Fanwood Quarry in Somerset County. With so little---at least that I'm aware of--- coming out of the classic Northern Virginia localities once known for similar material, it's great to know about recent action in New Jersey.

My next day-long read will lighten the piles in my office by about the same number of Rocks and Minerals editions. If the heatwave continues, this will probably happen sooner rather than later.

Remembering Larry Krause

2010-06-23T15:14:00.000+01:00

Baltimore, Maryland lost its premier mineral dealer and a lot more with the June 2 passing of Larry Krause. Just about every local collector was both a customer and a friend. Dealing minerals was only one of the many hats Larry wore. Most of them extended far beyond the interests that bind us mineral people together. Regardless of the hat he was wearing, what most lingers in the memory is of Larry himself and the spirit that drove him. He was gentle, kind, opinionated, motivated by challenges, driven by ethics, civic-minded, cultural minded, good-humoured, and he had a great marriage.

Larry and I go back nearly 33 years, most of which had nothing to do with minerals. My earliest memory is when he as publisher and Alice as editor---they would marry five years later---engaged me as a writer for the Baltimore Chronicle. We spent many hours together over weeks, months, perhaps even a year before Larry mentioned that he collected minerals, which had been my hobby as a child. Soon thereafter, he took me to collect iridescent siderite at Arbutus Canyon along Washington Boulevard (long since paved over by Home Depot). As enjoyable as the experience was for me, a lifestyle encompassing two jobs, two children, and two acres precluded me from resuming this hobby that had been all but forgotten for 25 years.

Larry had a lot of other responsibilities as well during this period. They included publishing at least five community newspapers, two magazines, and a book. He also founded two nonprofits, and had prominent roles with more than several other organizations, among them the Baltimore Mineral Society, which he served at various junctures as secretary, vice president and president.
I stayed in touch with Larry, writing for four of his publications and serving on the boards of directors of two of them. In 1989, I began writing a weekly column entitled "Jake About Town" for the Chronicle. It related to everything that was offbeat about Baltimore's culinary scene.

"Jake About Town" became so much a part of my life that in 1992, I sold the home service brokering business which had been my livelihood for 21 years and launched a company to produce a line of extremely exotic canned soups. Though the soup business never made me rich, it replaced the worries associated with responsibility for thousands of jobs taking place in peoples' houses every year with a level of happiness and a sense of fulfillment I'd never before known. Were it not for Larry, this probably never would have happened, and I mention it only because of the role he played in getting me back into minerals, which became the next chapter.

During the final decade of his life, Larry gradually transitioned from publishing community newspapers to devoting more time to his mineral collection and Octahedron Minerals, the sideline business started years before. It wasn't long before the enormous two-room basement of his and Alice's house was filled with minerals from floor to ceiling. His personal collection was in one of the rooms, Octahedron's inventory in the other.

Around the time I sold the soup business in 2004, to earn more money in real estate and start thinking about retirement, Larry invited me to accompany him to a meeting of the Baltimore Mineral Society and encouraged me to purchase some minerals from him. By this time, I was telling people that minerals were "something to pursue when I get older." Though my life continued to be crammed with other commitments, Larry had soon sold me enough minerals to justify creating a space in the basement to display them. Shortly thereafter, the childhood passion that 45 years before had given way to sports, girls, and other adolescent distractions reinstated itself full force.

After learning that he had cancer, Larry began to sell off in earnest the inventory of Octahedron Minerals as well as his collection. He did so mostly by inviting specific collectors, usually in small groups, to come to the house and shop. Though receiving more than my share of invitations, and wanting to be there, I was out of town on most of these occasions, but recall all too clearly the one that I resisted. Our house already had more rocks in it than we had appropriate space for, and I wanted to see more of them moving out---a slow and tedious process when selling them on line---than coming in. How secondary that concern proved to be when realizing now the opportunity I missed to have had just a little more time hanging out with Larry.

An All But Forgotten Maryland Gypsum Find

2010-06-19T17:29:00.000+01:00

Among the most spectacular mineral specimens known to have been collected in Maryland are the blades and rosettes of gypsum (referred to as selenite when crystallized) that have been plucked from clay along the St. Mary's River banks at Chancellors Point and at Fort Washington in Prince Georges County beneath the bluffs of the Potomac. Lesser known, arguably more spectacular, and all but forgotten are crystals collected approximately 50 years ago from a deposit near Fort Foote in Prince Georges County about three miles down river from Fort Washington. For the second recent Sunday afternoon, a row, I had the opportunity to accompany Jeff Nagy on another drive to Virginia, this time to Strasburg for further research on his project to update and republish the 1981 Maryland Geological Survey publication Minerals of the Washington, DC Area by Lawrence Bernstein. Specifically, his mission was to meet and learn about the find from Gary Allard, who with his brother Brian, now deceased, had discovered the deposit.

For its year and a half of productivity, the site was the secret domain the two brothers. Gary appears in our title picture holding a rosette and the most spectacular crystal blade of the find, which is the largest crystal of selenite I've ever seen from Maryland. Amazingly, its appearance suggests that it could once have been part of a rosette. It is the same crystal that Gary was photographed holding 49 years ago in an article entitled Crystals by the Ditchful that appeared in the June-July, 1961 edition of Rocks and Minerals . At present, we are awaiting permission from Rocks and Minerals new publisher to post a reproduction of that earlier picture. If granted, one will be inserted herein soon thereafter.

Over less than two years, the two brothers pretty much cleaned out most of the crystals, using some for a science project at school and selling a others to classmates. Then they notified Ellsworth Swift,who authored the article in Rocks and Minerals. By then, the ditch had become less a source of crystals than what Swift referred to as "a challenge to discover the nature of the deposit and a chance to speculate on its formation."

He noted in the article that the Fort Foote crystals occurred in the Patapsco Clay, which also hosted other gypsum finds reported from the region. He described this clay as formed in the Cretaceous Age and variegated (in colour). Gary Allard recalled that the crystals occurred in a a "purplish" clay that was darker than the crystal bearing Patapsco clay at nearby Fort Washington. The crystals that Gary and Brian collected, whether rosettes or single crystals, were generally larger and less stained by clay than most of the better known material collected at Fort Washington and in St. Mary's County.

Particularly interesting was that while riverside bluffs had yielded the Fort Washington and St. Mary's crystals, those from Fort Foote were collected about a half mile inland in a ditch intended for drainage alongside what was soon to be paved over as an extension of River Bend Road. Just as noteworthy was their confinement to a 125 foot section of the ditch. Swift suggested that this could mean the crystals "concentrated along structural features such as joints," or that this particular deposit was "irregular in shape with the ditch merely cutting a cross section through the crystal patch.'" He explained further how the crystals were most likely formed when groundwater from the Piedmont that contained sulfuric acid from decomposing pyrite flowed eastward and mixed with the lime bearing beds of the Coastal Plain at Fort Foote.

Gary Allard now lives in the Shenandoah Valley near Strasburg, Virginia. He said he moved there because it had more kinds of rocks than than "that boring Coastal Plain" where he grew up." He still loves to collect minerals and prior to his recent retirement was a jeweler and metal engraver. One of his recent finds that amazed Jeff and me was the green quartz crystal pictured at right from near Front Royal in Warren County, Virginia. The book Minerals of Virginia, by R.V Dietrich, 1991, noted nothing like it from Warren County. The only green quartz the book mentioned was presumably massive and from another part of Virginia with coloration "probably due to included amphibole or chlorite." It too, Gary discovered along the side of a dirt road albeit not in a ditch.

Collecting at the Havre de Grace Quarry

2010-06-14T16:18:00.000+01:00

Hats off to the Vulcan Materials Company/Arundel Corporation, except for hard hats that is. Assistant Plant Manager Patrick Pieton couldn't have been more gracious when he opened up the Havre de Grace Quarry on a recent Saturday for Baltimore Mineral Society members to collect.

The quarry descends from 670 acres immediately south of the Susquehanna River and west of Havre de Grace at a point where the Port Deposit gneiss meets Harford County's metagabbro and amphibolite. It is visible off to the right as one drives north across the Susquehanna on I-95. Although the rocks are hard, they bear plenty of mineral specimens that are relatively easy to collect.

After an informative briefing from Pat about the quarry and mine safety, we followed him in our cars down several levels to collect along berms on either side of road. Sulphides proved to be abundant in the rocks here, especially pyrite in large masses and sometimes in cubes up to at least an inch. Unfortunately these crystals were impossible to extract from the much harder gneiss and metagabbro encasing them. Often associated with the pyrite were less sizeable masses of bright yellow golden chalcopyrite sometimes accompanied by wildly iridescent bornite. One of the more interesting finds was a sizeable mass of pyrrohotite running through a matrix bearing few small particles of what through the loupe appeared to be crystalline sphalerite.

Excitement increased when Fred Parker found a large boulder partially coated with a druse of clear colorless zeolites. Through the loupe, we were able to identify heulandite for sure, and very possibly some chabazite as well. The druse, however, was of a different hue than a particularly attractive 1988 heulandite find by Parker where the micro crystals were orangish brown and occasionally accompanied by slightly larger crystals of white calcite.

Collecting only got better when Pat reappeared to lead us to the bottom level of the quarry. Within minutes we were in the midst of numerous rocks coated with heulandite druses of similar hue to those from the 1988 find. Although mostly quite weathered, occasional scatterings of micro pyrite cubes contributed a dramatic sparkle to some of them. The image at right was shot at 40x.

Also present at the same spot were some rocks covered with bladed sprays of white laumontite. After whacking one of them with my mallet, two attractive small cabinet sized slabs broke off to expose laumontite on both sides. Nearby, Bob Eberle pounded away at a boulder from which he ultimately extracted an attractive epidote crystal of approximately an inch. As abundant as epidote is likely to be in this kind of rock, it was the only such find of the day.

As our noon deadline approached, Fred Parker wondered off to what was probably the day's piece de resistance. Quite apart from where we'd been collecting, it was an enormous boulder he'd spotted soon after our arrival at the bottom level. The druses of orange heulandite covering it were less weathered. After pounding away at the boulder with a sledge hammer he inserted a small chisel at a point where one crystal coated slab after soon detatched. As he wrapped the pieces in newspaper and placed them into a compartmentalized flat, several of us ran off in yet another direction from the spot where we'd spent nearly all of the past two hours. Almost too much heulandite, it seemed, not enough time.

Northern Virginia Then and Now

2010-06-06T15:12:00.000+01:00

The two Centreville Quarry apophyllite on prehnite specimens at left are displayed at the Smithsonian. Those at right are from the collection of a Northern Virginia resident who has been prospecting in the area for more than half a century. While the pieces from the Smithsonian are better known, all are classics specimens from a classic locality. On Lee Highway less than 30 miles from the Smithsonian, the Centreville Quarry is home turf.

On a spur of the moment visit to Washington, D.C. last week, I had dropped by the Smithsonian while my wife accompanied her cousin, who was visiting from Texas, around the Mall on a tour bus. The only minerals I took time to photograph were the two apophyllite and prehnite specimens at top left. My purpose was to show them to my friend Harold Levey, who in the good old days circa 1950 had permission to camp out at the Centreville quarry and scarf up such material to his heart's content. Harold and his buddies once showed up at the Smithsonian with a particularly attractive specimen and cut a deal with then Curator of Minerals George Switzer to exchange it for a duplicate mimetite specimen from its Robeling Collection. Their Centreville Quarry find quickly found a home in a prominent area of the mineral gallery, which in those days was in a different part of the Museum of Natural History Building. Needless to say, much has changed over 60 years both at the Smithsonian and the former mineral collecting environs of Northern Virginia.

As synchronicity would have it, two days later I found myself at the Falls Church home of the collector who owned the equally if not more impressive specimens pictured at top right. My original plan for that day had been to check out the site of a long forgotten 1960's gypsum find with Jeff Nagy for his project to update and revise the 1980 Maryland Geological Survey publication Minerals of the Washington, D.C. Area by Lawrence R. Bernstein. After those arrangements were postponed, Jeff had arranged instead for us to visit a source whom the original publication had credited with "oral communications" relating to several noteworthy Northern Virginia finds from quite far off the beaten track. He was also the owner of those other two classic apophyllites on prehnite.

While providing us with extensive input that was both timely and informative, he also shared fascinating details relating to the "outside the box" journey that led to his encyclopedic knowledge about the geology, mineralogy, paleontology, and archaeology of Northern Virginia as well as owning some of the finest mineral specimens the region ever produced. His request for anonymity helped me stay focused on the material at hand.

In addition to the apophyllite and prehnite specimens that I was able to photograph, his collection included the most spectacular stilbite crystals I've ever seen from Virginia as well as an amazing byssolite specimen needing to be seen to be believed. Like the apophyllites on prehnite, both of these specimens were also collected years ago at the Centreville Quarry. Since their locations in the cabinet were not conducive to photographs that would do them justice and because of time and space constraints, we agreed that they would be photographed on a subsequent visit.

Most of the collecting in Northern Virginia is now limited to those rare occasions when by special arrangement, a couple of quarries long past their collecting primes permit mineral societies to visit on field trips. Otherwise, little remains accessible beyond stream beds and their cobbles. Our host collected the ilmenite specimen at left, which is by far the largest specimen I've ever observed from the United States, from such a deposit just a few yards from Military Road. He also showed us no less impressive a treasure from another stream bed deposit in Holmes Run. It was a perfectly terminated and barely tumbled three inch by two inch amethyst crystal. We surmised that perhaps it had weathered relatively recently from a nearby matrix and probably become buried soon thereafter.

In coming weeks, Jeff Nagy will be prospecting such stream beds and what few other Northern Virginia collecting spots of which any trace remains. Once published, his revision of Minerals of the Washington, D.C. Area will bring its readers up to the moment.

Deweylite Confusion

2010-06-01T01:24:00.000+01:00

How I wish the Maryland Academy of Sciences still maintained its display of Maryland minerals on the third (or fourth) floor of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library. That was several decades before the Academy's move in 1980 to its Inner Harbor domicile, which to the best of my knowledge has yet to house any minerals from Maryland or anywhere else.

Right next to an enormous Montgomery County gold nugget embedded in a quartz boulder was an humongous chunk of Bare Hills deweylite that oddly enough fascinated me equally as much. Three closeup images of lesser Baltimore County deweylite pieces from my personal collection compose the title picture for this post. From left to right, their localities are the Bare Hills serpentine barrens along Falls Road less than a mile north of the city line, the former Dyer Quarry at Soldiers Delight, and the still active Blue Mount Trap Quarry north of Monkton. Wherever it is found, deweylite is never a species, but a combination of species that seem to vary not only from locality to locality, but according to whom you ask. All that appears to be certain is that serpentine is part of the equation.

The image at left graced the Maryland Minerals web site slide show until about a month ago. It disappeared pursuant to a lesson learned from John S. White, one that seemed to me a bit arcane for mention in our previous post. Even John's advice struck me as a bit convoluted at first, though ultimately it proved to be more concise than anything my subsequent research could uncover. "The best approach," he suggested, " is probably to label it Serpentine "Deweylite."'

Bernard and Hyrsl's Minerals and Their Localities lists Deweylite in italics with the following description: "Deweylite, synonym gymnite----A mixture of serpentine, stevensite or talc minerals, fine grained, yellow, green , red. As resinous crusts in serpentinites at-----(several localities). " Mindat refers to deweylite as "a mixture of various poorly ordered trioctahedral 1:1 and 2:1 layer silicates, mainly lizardite and stevensite. Mindat describes gymnite as both a synonym for antigorite and also an "obsolete name for an apparently amorphous antigorite," and it describes lizardite as a species "closely related to" antigorite and also chrysotile." Antigorite, lizardite, and chrysotile are all prominent members of the serpentine group.

A third definition of "gymnite" from Webster's Dictionary on the Internet proved to be the most interesting part of my research, referring to it as a "hydrous silicate of magnesium coming from Bare Hills, Maryland." Since Minerals and their Localities defines gymnite as a synonym for deweylite itself, and Mindat refers to it as a synonym for antigorite, a reasonable conclusion would be that antigorite is a major component of deweylite from Bare Hills. While our photographs of deweylite from Bare Hills (as well as two other Baltimore County localities) depict antigorite with a brownish colour that might appear far from typical, the species occurs in numerous colors, can range from fibrous to nodular, and has been referred to by a variety of names including , picrolite, and baltimorite. As for other species in the deweylite mix, a magnesite presence is obvious in each of the three Baltimore County specimens.

On the other hand, I've never encountered mention of lizardite from any of deweylite's three Baltimore County localities. At other localities reporting deweylite where lizardite is known to occur, I'd assume that the combination of species could be different. At least John S. White managed to keep things simple. Our Bare Hills "deweylite" image will soon reappear at Maryland Minerals web site with the label that he suggested: Serpentine "Deweylite."

On Lessons learned from John S. White

2010-05-21T15:12:00.000+01:00

I question whether anyone currently active in mineralogy has commented more prolifically on the subject than John S. White. His media include books, continuing articles in the major periodicals, lectures, organizational forums, and ultimately the Internet. Along the way, he founded, edited and originally published Mineralogical Record then served as Curator-in-charge (1984-1991) of the Smithsonian's Division of Mineralogy. His "Let's Get it Right" columns during the past decade for Rocks and Minerals bespeak a penchant for addressing topics frequently prone to inaccuracies and misconceptions. While John's mineralogical wisdom typically dispatches through public channels, Yours Truly has for several months enjoyed the privilege of receiving it directly via email. His interest has been in the slide show of Maryland mineral images at the Maryland Minerals web site that I launched in 2007. John grew up here in Maryland and continues to maintain close ties in the state. He currently lives just a few miles across the line in neighboring Pennsylvania.

With the Maryland Minerals site now being reconstructed to implement a major technical change that John suggested, (the site remains accessible), much of his advice regarding nomenclature and sequence of the slides is already in place. It applies to just about any framework for displaying minerals.

They should be arranged in some sort of order, either geographically or by chemistry. I would certainly group all of the same species if you don't arrange them geographically.

County names should be included with the locality of each specimen.

I have a strong personal distaste for "grossular garnet" or "almandine garnet." My fuss may not be altogether rational but it rankles me. "Grossular (garnet family)" does not bother me, but "grossular garnet" sets me off. Apart from the tourmalines and micas, you don't see this with any other family of minerals.

If giving the chemistry for one specimen, give it for each specimen.

Why say "quartz crystal" instead of just quartz if not doing this this with other crystals.

Photomicrograph is a better word to use than microphotograph.

Celestine, not celestite.

Sulfur, not sulphur.

Much of what is labeled "limonite pseudomorph after pyrite" is actually goethite pseudomorph after pyrite.

I think it would be good if sizes were indicated at some point for all images, but this is not critical.

Three months of John's advice led to editing the ID's originally Photoshopped to the slide show images with such frequency that further tampering threatened to diminish their quality. This dilemma, however, also heralded the remedy for an even bigger technical issue not yet addressed, namely that touching the mouse triggered a platform application that sometimes covered up the ID's.

The solution necessitates viewing thousands of images on hundreds of old Cd's in order to find the originals and touch them up again with editing software sans descriptions to replace the inscribed images. Once in place, the user-friendly Google Picasa captioning component provides an easier, more efficient means to ID them. Work on this project is underway with completion anticipated by mid-June. After these changes, John's suggestions will be easier to implement, and I hope they keep coming.

Kissimmee, Florida's Tower of Rocks

2010-05-14T16:09:00.000+01:00

The last several weeks have been an hiatus from the mineralogical pursuits that increasingly have been taking over my life. Included were an annual religious pilgrimage to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and then driving along a catastrophically threatened Gulf Coast to visit family in Central Florida before returning to Baltimore via I-95 with a visit to Cumberland Island National Seashore off the Coast of Georgia.

The closest to mineralogically pertinent attraction of this sojourn was probably the Florida Caverns State Park, but alas its cave tours were not offered on Tuesdays (or Wednesdays). Eager to score a post for Mineral Bliss, my next stop was what I thought was Kissimmee, Florida's "Tower of Rocks," which in reality is known as the Monument of States. Currently it sits in the middle of a construction zone adjacent to the library between Main Street and Kissimmee's lakefront.

This 50 foot high pyramidal totem pole like structure, the legacy of its designer, the late Dr. C.W. Bressler-Pettis, extends about 50 foot into the air from an approximately 20 foot base. Its beginnings trace to a letter that Dr. Bressler-Pettis sent in 1942 to President Franklin D. Roosevelt as well as the governors of all the 48 states then in existence to request at least one rock from each state. A year later, through various means, the doctor had obtained all the rocks that he needed. They ranged from ore specimens to fossils to meteorites to plaques. They were mortared into concrete slabs to comprise the monument. Mortared into additional concrete slabs were various rocks of marginal mineralogical interest selected from approximately 23,000 "specimens" that Dr. Bressler-Pettis and his wife had collected while enjoying a putative 350,000 miles worth of motor vacations. Pursuant to a theme of American unity for World War II, Dr. Bressler-Pettis, who had scrapped his medical career to work as an artist, sculpted a globe with an eagle atop it to cap his monument. The Monument of States was constructed and dedicated in 1943.

Rocks continued to arrive in Kissimmee for years thereafter, even subsequent to Dr. Bressler-Pettis's death in 1954. Courtesy of the citizens of Kissimmee, many were were added to the monument. Included were slabs with rocks from Alaska and Hawaii, in addition to slabs later sent in by businesses and other nations. As a resident of Maryland and keeper of the Maryland Minerals website, I spent quite a bit of time trying to locate at least one Maryland rock. All I could find was a plaque dated 1941 from Mr. and Mrs. Charles M. Day of Baltimore.

The only other attraction in America I'm aware of that compares in any way to Kissimmee's Monument of States is The Fireplace of States in Bemidji, Minnesota. Its construction took place about eight years before the Monument States after a "resorter" had sent letters to the President of the United States and the governors of each state. I suspect that Dr. Bressler-Pettis inspiration resulted from having passed through Bemidji at some point during those 350,000 miles of driving.

Maryland Mineralogy Presented at Rochester Symposium

2010-04-24T14:18:00.000+01:00

Note: Readers are encouraged to check out the Mineral Bliss Podcast about the Rochester Symposium.

Beyond the State or local level, a presentation such as Fred Parker delivered on the morning of April 16 at the Rochester Mineralogical Symposium has long been overdue. As Parker expressed early in his talk, Maryland is "the Rodney Dangerfield of the mineral world." He also credited amateur Maryland geologist Jeff Nagy for much of the presentation's information and perspective. Nagy and Parker have been working together on research intended for an updated printing of Lawrence R. Bernstein's Minerals of the Washington, D.C. Area, which was originally published in 1980 by the Maryland Geological Survey.

The presentation was in three parts as follows:

A short history of mining in Maryland

Review of a geological map of Maryland

A slide show of relevant Maryland Minerals

MINING HISTORY

Despite reports that Captain John Smith recognized the presence of bog iron ore in sedimentary deposits near the Chesapeake Bay, mining did not begin in Maryland until 1740 with patents for iron and copper. Thereafter, Maryland mined iron in substantial quantity, some that was used in the manufacture of munitions during the American Revolution. Pre-revolutionary dumps are still accessible at Mineral Hill in Carroll County. Maryland was also a significant producer of iron for the War of 1812

By the 1840's, Maryland had become one of the world's leading producers of chromium. The ore was mined at Bare Hills and Soldiers Delight in Baltimore County, near Cooptown in Harford County, and near the Pennsylvania State Line in Cecil County. Soon after the Civil War, Maryland was also a source, though never on a major scale, for a variety of other metals including gold, lead, manganese, and zinc. An accompanying slide, possibly the only known photograph of a facility in Maryland where metals were mined, pictured a manganese operation along the Potomac River about five miles upstream from Harpers Ferry. Maryland also produced such nonmetallic materials as mica beryl, feldspar, clay, talc, and coal.

MAP OF PERTINENT GEOLOGY

A map with colors explaining the geology inherent to the state's rock forming minerals was the focus of the presentation's second segment. It emphasized Maryland's central portion, which is more favorable to the pursuit of mineralogy than the coastal plain to the east or Garrett County at the western end of the state. Parker noted the following:

Formations of diabase still being quarried along the Susquehanna River near Havre de Grace.
Serpentine deposits that appear and reappear in a northeast to southwesterly path from the State Line in Cecil County in the northeast to Montgomery County in the southwest with reappearances in Harford, Baltimore, and Montgomery Counties.
Miocene sediment deposits along the Patuxent and also the Potomac Rivers that have yielded an abundance of high quality gypsum crystals.
The Baltimore gneiss, a metasediment that occurs sporadically in more spots than could be shown on the map. The Baltimore gneiss hosts many pegmatite intrusions that Parker described as "really quite fascinating in Maryland."
The Wakefield Marble accounts for both the active Medford and Portland Quarries in Carroll County as well as the long closed Liberty Mine in Frederick County, once Maryland's biggest producer of copper.
Parker noted the existence of Paleozoic sediments between the Wakefield Marble and the Precambrian metavolcanic Catoctin and Braddock mountain ranges. He described the latter as the source of excellent quartz veins near where these mountains approach the Potomac River.
Immediately west of the mountains is a region of limestone, shale, and sandstone extending into Pennsylvania and Virginia. It is the source of similar minerals in all three states.

SELECTED MINERAL OCCURRENCES IN MARYLAND

This was the most extensive segment of the presentation. The minerals were shown pursuant to their localities in conjunction with the geological map. Most can be seen on the Picasa slide show at the Maryland Minerals web site. Some, of these minerals also appear in posts on this site from July 18, 2009, May 2, 2009, and April 25, 2009 . Here are some of the highlights noted:

Approximately 250 different mineral species have been collected in Maryland.
Maryland is the type locality for one mineral, carrollite, which was discovered at the Patapsco Mine in Carroll County, for which it is named.
Significant quantities of tourmaline (variety schorl) showing several different habits including terminated crystals up to six inches in chlorite schist have been collected at the Maryland Materials Quarry in the diabase formation along the Susquehanna River.
As noted in the geological segment, the Miocene sediment deposits at Chancellors Point in St. Mary's County and Fort Washington in Prince Georges County have produced gypsum crystals of magnificent quality.
Garnets up to two inches in chlorite schist are abundant in a wooded area of Baltimore County about 22 miles north of Baltimore City.
What Parker belives could be Maryland's most prolific beryl locality is on the banks of a river near the Baltimore/Howard County line at a locality that he and Nagy refer to as the "Waterside Prospect." It is currently covered with water.
A particularly interesting slide showed monazite, which is rare in Maryland, from one of several long closed mica mines in Montgomery County.
Another slide displayed quartz crystals from a "lost" locality in Clarksville, Howard County, which Parker rediscovered when combing the digs for a housing development that ultimately obliterated the locality.
One of the most spectacular slides was of an historic botroydal malachite specimen from Carroll County's Patapsco Mine.
Two slides of Maryland gold in quartz, one from Montgomery County, another from Carroll County, attracted major interest.
Parker cited the Medford Quarry in Carroll County as Maryland's most prolific locality. He emphasized its abundance of diverse calcite pockets and also noted it as the source of some rare minerals. As an example, a slide of micro lanthanite crystals from a one-time find was shown.
The Portland Quarry at Union Bridge in Carroll County, just a few miles from the Medford Quarry, received the distinction of being Maryland's most unpredicable locality Among the slides with which Parker demonstrated this point was one of a transparent yellow wulfenite specimen from a find in the 1970's.
Predictably and appropriately, he reserved for the Hunting Hill Quarry in Montgomery County the honor of being Maryland's most mineralogically important locality. Citing the gemmy grossular associated with its serpentine and rodintine, he compared Hunting Hill's geology to Vermont's Eden Mills locality. He then showed slides of some of the seventy one different species that have been collected at Hunting Hill. A slide of xonotlite crystals was particularly noteworthy.
An expecially spectacular slide showed quartz crystals that were collected in the soil near Burkittsville in Frederick County prior to the Civil War.
Further west in Paleozoic limestone near Hagerstown in Washington County, Parker noted that one of several quarries that are quite similar to one another has produced attractive strontianite as well as native sulphur and celestine.
Further west in Washington County, Parker recognized the Pinesburg Quarry for its blue barite crystals and showed a slide of an exceptional specimen from his personal collection.
The final and westernmost locality he named was Savage Mountain near Frostburg. Once mined for its fire clay, it was one of Maryland's most popular collecting localities in the 1930's and 1940's. Savage Mountain is best known for geode like nodules filled with crystals of siderite and barite. A highlight was a slide photographed by Yours Truly of such a nodule bearing spectacular needles of millerite up to an inch long.
Parker concluded his presentation with an image of that he described as a "doorstop," namely serpentine and chromite with an historic label attached to it. The idea was to make the point that despite the initial impression of numerous mineral people, Maryland's mineralogy amounted to more than than simply these two species.

Note to readers: The next Mineral Bliss post is scheduled to appear at the end of the second week of May, 2010

Panning for Anatase in Harford County: Part II

2010-04-18T14:41:00.000+01:00

Ev parked along the country road paralleling Falling Branch opposite from where a small rivulet flowed into it from the adjacent wooded hillside. We removed from his trunk our waders, rubber gloves with cotton gloves to wear under them, two shovels two buckets, one with 1/4 holes drilled into the bottom third, pans, Ev's "sucker," and baggies. Casing out the stream, Ev pointed out and expressed his preference for spots where the velocity of the water changed, better in front of rocks around which the current swirled with at least some downward motion. He was also eager to pan at the mouth of the small rivulet

As I watched from the bank, Ev waded into the stream, secured his buckets, one placed into another for drainage from top to bottom, and began digging beneath the downstream side of a rock the current was circumventing. For each load, Ev extended his shovel all the way down to scrape the bedrock where gold, as the heaviest substance in the stream, tends to gravitate. Anatase, though nowhere near so heavy as gold, has sufficient specific gravity to do likewise.

After tossing away the larger rocks, Ev turned the linked buckets sideways at an angle to the current to sieve the sand and smaller pebbles to the bottom bucket through the holes in the top one. After repeating the process several times, he transferred the contents of the bottom bucket into the pan.

Since some of the additional sand remaning in the stream beneath the rock ledges was likely to be relatively heavy, Ev scraped the area, seeking out small pockets with a screwdriver before going to work with the "sucker" he is holding in the image at right. He covered the smaller tube with the larger one and placed the tip under the ledge. While holding the smaller tube in place, he pulled on the larger one to suck out water in which additional sand was dispersed. This he poured into the pan.

The next step was the actual panning to reduce the pan's contents to heavy "black sand," much of which would prove to be magnetite. To accomplish this, he held the pan in the stream and swirled its contents back and forth. With assistance from a reasonably mild current, the lighter sediment washed away while small pebbles he removed by hand trended toward the top. A layer of lighter sand settled beneath them. The heavier black sand, meanwhile, gravitated to the bottom of the pan or became caught in the cavities built into its side. This work takes a few minutes and can be tedious. Upon completion, Ev placed the remaining black sand into a marked baggie.

Ev then repeated the entire process where the rivulet entered Falling branch. When finished, he suggested I grab a shovel and try my luck in front of another rock surrounded by swirling current. Albeit with much less finesse, I followed all the previously described steps and eventually produced a small quantity of black sand. We placed it in a marked baggie and headed back to Ev's house, put the sand in his oven to dry, and drove into Jarrettsville for lunch.

When we returned in about 45 minutes, the sand had dried. After removing with a magnet the predominant magnetite, we placed what remained into three film canisters. The fruits of our morning's labors were now ready for observation under Ev's microscope. Checking a few small samples, we found fragments as well as crystals of garnet, minute cubes of goethite after pyrite, specks of pyrite, possibly some beryl, a few black octahedra (Were they chromite? Why didn't I think to retrieve that magnet?), and occasional rough grains of anatase. Ed removed the most interesting material with a special pair of microscopically tipped tweezers. After two hours, we had examined but a small fraction of the sand.

A week has now passed, and Ev just emailed me that he has finished going through the sand from the first two of our three digs. While his second dig at the mouth of the small rivulet hadn't yielded much, his first dig of the day ended up producing "210 little pieces of blue, bark blue, tan (the most), and yellow (the least) anatase," including 3 dark blue double pyramids (all broken),and two sky blue very small flat topped pyramids (complete), and 2 dark blue flat plates.

Meanwhile, I've been out of town over this past week and before leaving had time to check out but a small sprinkling from the film canister bearing the fruits of my own first attempt at panning. A portion of of it is shown at left. Eyes still relatively untrained for spotting anatase, my inclination had been to delay going through the rest until the list of activities on my busy to-do list slowed down a bit. After receiving Ev's recent email, however, a few of the them could have to wait.

Gold and Anatase in Harford County, Maryland

2010-04-11T07:10:00.000+01:00

Rarely does a topic more newsworthy to Mineral Bliss sensibility present itself than the contents of an email received recently from Ev Smith. Included were the above image of anatase crystals he panned from Falling Branch in Harford County Maryland as well as photos of larger specimens of rich chromite and serpentine minerals (right) that he collected near Cooptown. I responded within minutes and soon managed to wrangle an invitation to go panning for anatase with Ev a week later in Harford County's Falling Branch.

Like so many who pan for gold in the Mid-Atlantic, Ev got started with his hobby under the mentorship of Jack Nelson, the late and legendary regional "godfather" of panning. They panned mostly near Great Falls in Montgomery County. This is where Rock Run and other small streams flow through woodlands where gold mining operations were ubiquitous between 1864 and 1940. After Jack's death from cancer in 2002, Ev began panning for gold in streams closer to his home near Jarrettsville in Harford County. He is the only person I know of to actually find gold in Harford County. Most of the flakes in the image at left, Ev panned from Harford County streams. The larger nugget, in the top left corner of the picture, is from a small stream in Pennsylvania just over the Maryland line.

As a protege of Jack Nelson, it didn't surprise me that Ev would look for more than just gold in the material he panned from these streams. Jack was also an avid micromounter and had discovered amidst heavy mineral concentrates from streams in Montgomery County and elsewhere the first cubic garnets ever to be reported and identified. Aware that some of the grains of sand he was extracting were likely to be gem minerals, Ev made a practice of bringing home in baggies the sand that remained at the bottom of his pan at the end of the sifting process. Encountered were rutile, schorl, garnets in hues running a gamut from lavender to deep red, minute cubes of goethite pseudomorph after pyrite, and various other grains of sand not as easy to visually identify. Very likely, they could include, beryl apatite, zircon, and zoisite. The less common anatase was a later find that became apparent after Ev isolated several uncommon anatase grains with their crystal habits intact. More typically the anatase occurs in broken fragments like those in the image at right.

I arrived at Ev's house on Monday, April 5, with a borrowed pair of waders. In short order, we were en route to Falling Branch. Along the way, Ev pointed out to me where he had collected the chromite and serpentine minerals. Minerals of Maryland had described the locality as "serpentine barrens" with numerous chrome prospects in"Coopstown and Vicinity." Assuming this would be a landscape similar to Soldiers Delight or Bare Hills in Baltimore County, I had previously driven through the area looking without success. Instead, what Ev pointed out to me was a lush woodland with a variety of tall trees. For access, permission would need to be obtained at several houses, and Ev was no longer certain which ones. Ev also told me about a copper prospect just a short walk away that was not mentioned in Minerals of Maryland where he once collected some copper bearing minerals.

About ten minutes later, we pulled off a country road along Falling Branch not far from where it empties into Deer Creek. With our waders, a couple of shovels, two large white white buckets, one with 1/4 inch holes drilled through its bottom half, pans, and Ev's "sucker," we headed toward the stream. Next week's Mineral Bliss post will be about our experience.

Omphacite: Another Rarity from Hunting Hill

2010-04-04T03:58:00.000+01:00

The darker green "wormy" material extending from the the twinned diopside crystals marks the 70th mineral identified from Hunting Hill in Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland. It could also be the last, at least for a while. Hunting Hill's new ownership has completely closed the area to collectors.

This sodium, magnesium, iron, and aluminum bearing silicate of the pyroxene group is no less puzzling and obscure than rare. Wikipedia notes that the name "jadeite" is sometimes applied to rocks consisting entirely of omphacite. Until a month ago, the specimen pictured above had rested (unnoticed and unidentifed) with undisplayed Hunting Hill material in my personal Maryland collection.

Last week, I emailed the above image to Mindat. Within an hour, Mindat had responded: "Your photo might not be the mineral you said it was. The light green mineral to the right of the pale diopside looks like clinochlore in the photo. Can you tell me how it was tested? Because of the lack of precision between diopside, augite, and omphacite, the light green diopside is more likely the omphacite."

Without dropping the names here of those who have expressed different opinions, I've conducted my research and passed information that completely convinced me on to Mindat. If Mindat concurs, the above image should ultimately become the ninth image in its omphacite photo gallery. The meager eight images that currently appear in that gallery testify to omphacite's obscurity.

Some Dazzling Maryland Microminerals

2010-03-27T14:40:00.000Z

This week's post borrows from a brief slide show of Maryland micromounts that I presented this past Friday evening to the Atlantic Micromount conference. Regular followers of Mineral Bliss may have seen some but not all of these specimens before. The cover girl is anglesite from Frederick County's Mountain View Lead mine, photographed at about 30x. The smithsonite image at left, shot with similar magnification ,also hailed from the Mountain View locality. Its colour amazes me. Both specimens were collected about 15 years ago. The self-collected azurite with malachite at right is from my visit there that was described in the Mineral Bliss post of March 21, 2009. It was the only evidence of either of those two secondary copper minerals I encountered.

The much more more spectacular malachite (left) was collected in Carroll County just east of Frederick County at the Lehigh-Portland Cement Quarry near Union Bridge. Most of Maryland's relatively scarce crystallized malachite occurs in acicular crystals. Their different habit and greener than green hue against a backdrop of yellow calcite makes them a personal favorite. The colour of this calcite isn't too different from that of the only wulfenite ever reported from Maryland, which interestingly was collected at this same Lehigh-Portland Cement Quarry locality. All that was ever found was from a single rock uncovered in the 1970's by the late and legendary Maryland collector George Brewer. A flattened pyramid of this wulfenite is pictured at right. Just above it is a cerussite crystal that measures about a millimeter.

The Maryland cerussite crystals below at left are much larger, but not so much so as to preclude being shown in the company of microminerals. They were also collected in Carroll County just a few miles away at the Redland- Genstar Medford Quarry. Though displayed in my collection as a hand specimen, the crystals are better appreciated with the magnification from a macro lens as shown. The rarest and most remarkable mineral ever yielded from the Medford Quarry is the lanthanite pictured at right. As with the wulfenite that was found so close by, all of Maryland's known supply of lanthanite came from one rock. While the nomenclature system for such rare earth species directs that the dominant rare earth element's symbol be shown at the end of the mineral's name, I do not believe such a determination was ever made with this find. A good reason could be that it was too dear and tiny to give any up for testing.

Though Maryland has more than its share of zeolite localities around the state, I'm not aware of any that have produced micromounts more eye-catching than the old-timer chabazite and heulandite pieces that are in Harvard University's micromount collection. Both specimens were from one of the several long closed and covered up 19th century gneiss quarries that operated in Baltimore City's Jones Falls Valley. The chabazite is at left, the heulandite at right.

Maryland's serpentine barrens, all which were once mined for chromium, have also yielded some intriguing micromount material. I feel like apologizing to those who attended my presentation this past Friday night for neglecting to show them the chromian clinochlore (aka rhodochrome, penninite, japanite, miskeyite) pictured at right from Cecil County's State Line Chrome Pits and part of the Harvard collection. The kind of beautiful red quartz crystals at left from the geologically similar Soldiers Delight in Baltimore County are less likely to occur within the vast expanses of serpentine barrens than lining vugs in rocks from its greener wooded areas. Though the land is public and has been set aside for the enjoyment of all, the the removal by anyone of mineral specimens is strictly prohibited with enforcement that's known to be rigid.

Different Pokrovskite Habits, a Possible New Mineral, Hunting Hill Closed

2010-03-13T17:30:00.000Z

Despite a 1987 article by John White in Mineralogical Record entitled "Pokrovskite: A Common Mineral" ---pokrovskite is by all accounts relatively obscure. MINDAT currently shows only three images of this magnesium bearing carbonate of the rosasite series and names but seven localities around the world from which it's been reported. Perhaps MINDAT will show more images after I submit two of my own, but we'll have to see. They will differ visually not only from each other, but from all three of the images presently up on MINDAT. One is the micro-photograph at the right end of the above full view, macro, micro progression. The other will be the image at right of pokrovskite bearing a more unusual "satin spar" habit.

During my visit this past December to discuss and photograph Maryland Minerals at the Harvard Mineralogical Museum, its curator Carl Francis more than once mentioned pokrovskite as an example of one of the relatively few rare minerals known to be found in Maryland. He made a point of showing me the Museum's premier specimen with the familiar brown radiating tufts. Later, as I observed and photographed Harvard's Maryland micromounts, the "satin spar" piece turned up. Quite deliberately albeit incorrectly, I referred to the pokrovskite identification as "questionable" in a caption beneath the photograph.

No sooner had I mailed the image (and caption) as part of a "Harvard's Maryland Minerals" CD to Dr. Francis than Fred Parker, who authored "The Minerals of Hunting Hill Quarry, Rockville Maryland," in the September, 2005 Mineralogical Record, replied to a recent Email from me requesting his opinion regarding the pokrovskite identification. "Maybe," Fred wrote."One form of pokrovskite is a 'satin spar' like formation which this resembles." Later in day, once I'd informed Parker that Harvard had obtained the micromount specimen from Fred Shaefermeyer, his response was: "Absolutely. Fred Schaefermeyer was the Prince of Pokrovskite."

Fred Parker and the much older Fred Schaefermeyer were close friends who collected together at Hunting Hill before and through the 1990's. In addition to dubbing Schaefermeyer the "Prince of Pokrovskite,"Parker also spoke of him as the "father of Hunting Hill micromineralogy, a cheerful and intelligent man whose forte was a an eye for picking up minerals that looked different." After his eyesight had declined to the point he could not longer collect, Schaefermeyer dissipated his collection and turned over to Parker several flats of unlabeled Hunting Hill minerals.

Parker sent several pieces about which he was particularly curious for analysis at James Madison University by Lance Kearns. One was the "satin spar" like material, which Kearns identified as pokrovskite. He also uncovered another brown and radiating mineral from the rosasite series that he could not identify. The possibility seems realistic that this could be a new mineral. To date, no one has come forward to probe further regarding its possible submission to the IMA for approval as such.

And now for the bad news: Prospects have been quashed at Hunting Hill for collecting any more pokrovskite, any more of this potential new mineral, or for that matter any of the 70 species known to occur there. A Swiss company recently purchased Hunting Hill and closed it to all with interest in collecting.

Philadelphia Academy's Maryland Mineral Suite Comes Home

2010-03-06T02:36:00.000Z

I find myself coming up with words like "heinous" and "ignominious," when contemplating how for more than 50 years the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia ignored and neglected a significant national treasure that happened to be its mineral collection . Over that period, a fair number of the 30 thousand plus specimens therein had decomposed, were pilfered, or crashed into one another amidst rotting storage facilities. Finally, in the early part of the "aught" decade, the Academy decided to sell. John White, former Curator of Minerals at the Smithsonian, wrote in a subsequent digital commentary, that the Academy's then president "was dazzled by dollar signs." The sale took place in 2007.

With no other museum able to afford to purchase so vast and important a collection, it ended up in the hands of two prominent high end mineral dealerships, namely Collectors Edge and Cristalle. Both entities have long been highly regarded and well respected by pretty much the entire gamut of players in the mineralogy arena. Their stewardship and disposal of the Philadelphia Academy collection has lived up to that reputation. Various "suites" of minerals sorted according to locality were kept together and offered for purchase to museums and other potentially appropriate custodial sources. The Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, for instance, purchased the entire Pennsylvania suite of over 400 flats.

The collection had a vastly smaller Maryland suite, in which no educational institution or museum demonstrated interest, perhaps because few of the Maryland specimens rated as "eye candy." That was fine with Marylander Fred Parker, to whom vintage minerals had just as much appeal. After making inquiries that were followed by words on his behalf from friends, Parker ultimately received a phone call from Steve Behling of Collectors Edge.

Negotiations were simple and quick. With low demand, the price was right, and Parker accepted Behling's offer without a haggle. Arrangements were made for delivery and transfer at the 2008 East Coast Gem and Mineral Show in West Springfield, Massachusetts.

Since bringing the suite home, Parker has kept it completely intact. The best pieces fill the case by which he stands in the picture (at top)/ He keeps the others in two flats next to it.

"The labels," he notes ( meaning additional labels accompanying the Academy's labels), "are a who's who of the important mineralogy people of the 1800's." The names include Gerard Troost (1776-1850), William Jeffries (1820-1906), and Horace Hayden (1769-1844). On the label next to the smoky quartz crystal at left, the early collector's name (George Carpenter (1802-1860) has disintegrated away. The locality, Frederick County, with no information as to exactly where in Frederick County, is still legible. That's how it was in the 1800's Fred explained to me. The labels back then were less specific about localities than they are today.

Another mineral from the suite that especially impresses Parker is a magnetite crystal from Harford County that's just short of two inches in diameter. He also particularly likes, more for its unusual combination of minerals than appearance, a specimen of sphene with tabular apatite crystals and plates of hematite.

Credit Fred Parker for preserving a meaningful and pertinent part of history that would otherwise have been lost. This vintage suite of minerals not only chronicles the evolution in Maryland of a scientific field of study, it tells us what the State is made of.

Alfredo Petrov: One of a Kind

2010-02-27T15:11:00.000Z

When asked where he lives, Alfredo Petrov answers "kind of out of my suitcase," and likes to joke that he personally has kept American Airlines out of bankruptcy. " He adds: "I have my rocks, my microscopes, and my clothes scattered about homes on four continents." This makes sense for someone who deals minerals at 16 shows every year (three in Japan, two in Europe, and eleven in the United States). In addition to these shows, Alfredo and partner Frank deWit operate a mineral travel business that escorts collectors on trips to such destinations as Bolivia, Greenland, Portugal, Morocco, Spain, Switzerland, Italy and Japan.

Alfredo was born in Great Britain of a Russian father and German mother. He attended high school in Ethiopia where, as the only white student among 800 who were black, remembers himself as having been "kind of like the school pet." He began college in Beirut, Lebanon, because of its proximity to Ethiopia and ended up in the U.S., graduating with a degree in geology from San Diego State. Among other places he has since lived and worked are Japan, where he worked as a translator, and in Peekskill, New York, working as an assistant to Tony Nikischer of Mineral News. At all the shows around the world where he sets up shop, the sign announcing his presence reads, "Alfredo Petrov: Bolivia." That is where he was living and working as a geologist for the Bolivian government when he first began selling minerals internationally.

Most of the world's phosphophyllite, which numerous credible dealers refer to as "the Holy Grail of minerals," comes from Boliva, and Alfredo believes that he's supplied more than half of of all that's hit the market over the past several years. The Holy Grail tag attached itself at the end of the 1990's, when phosphophyllite had become all but extinct at the only major locality that produced it, namely the Unificado Mine in Cerro Rico near Potosi. In more recent years, after acquiring specimens from two new Bolivian localities, Alfredo became the man to see for it. He quickly points out, however, that these newer localities never produce specimens as gemmy as those from the original locality

Alfredo credits Rock Currier for bringing him to Tucson and getting him started as a mineral dealer. "Rock Currier," he says "did more than anyone to internationalize the major shows. The big shows didn't use to be international then like they are now. Then, in the late 1970's, he (Rock) started finding people in Third World countries, taught them how to be mineral dealers, and brought them here."

Most of the minerals Alfredo sells (about 80 per cent, he says) are to other dealers who resell them in stores, and on the Internet. Without exception, the selection is eclectic, diverse, and dominated by specimens that are rare and/or for one reason or another unusual. Many he has either field collected himself or obtained at shows in different parts of the world. Those at left, for instance are from Japan. The labels are in Alfredo's distinctive handwriting and come in different shapes, colors, and sizes.

Alfredo is also an avid micromounter and writes for numerous publications including Rocks and Minerals, Mineralogical Record, Mineral News, and Lapis. He is also a major player at Mindat. More than anything, he's one of a kind.

Rusty James: King of Ajoite and Papagoite

2010-02-20T08:23:00.000Z

Cornerstone Minerals is a rock and gem shop at the corner of Lexington and Walnut in the heart of Asheville, North Carolina. It sells a variety of minerals, fossils, home decor, jewelry and metaphysical merchandise. At first glance it appears to be a tourist shop, but behind the scenes and in the back are several cases of far more notable minerals and fossils. They are the inventory of two additional and more specialized businesses: Throwin' Stones and Sacred Earth. Each year during the first two weeks of February, the two enterprises share space at the Tucson City Center Hotel (formerly Inn Suites) at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. It is mobbed with serious and seasoned high-end mineral collectors.

The principal item attracting this crowd is the extensive selection of quartz crystals bearing inclusions of the rare and the colorful copper silicates ajoite and papagoite. Such crystals occur exclusively at a single locality in the world, namely an open pit mine in Messina, Limpopo Province, South Africa. Otherwise, the New Cornelia Mine near Ajo in Pinal County, Arizona is the type locality and was long the only locality for both ajoite and papagoite. Even at the New Cornelia Mine, the two minerals are rare, and rather than as inclusions in quartz crystals, both minerals occur in micro-crystals on matrix. They are easily differentiated by color; ajoite is sky blue, papagoite is bright blue. Their presence inside quartz crystals at Messina turned up sporadically between 1970 and 1991. Mineralogists around the world were amazed at an occurrence both so unlikely and so aesthetically pleasing. However, between 1991 and 2007, no new material was uncovered. Dealers horded much of what was available and brought limited quantities to market each year as prices increased at about ten per cent annually.

Then, unexpectedly in 2007, hand digging in a different and relatively shallow part of the mine caused several tunnels to collapse to reveal more included crystals. This area of the mine had been worked for copper in the 1950's before the identification of ajoite and papagoite in quartz crystals. Apparently the miners had encountered the included quartz crystals, but ignored them and dug deeper to reach ore that was richer and readily extractable. They left behind several pockets where the clarity and concentrations of ajoite and papagoite in the crystals therein had rarely been observed in the finds from several decades before.

Rusty James, who owns Throwin' Stones with his wife Nicole, could at first seem an unlikely persona for being a major player in the distribution of such crystals. He quickly refers to himself as a "musical artist" who plays exotic percussion and notes that Nicole is a visual artist. Rusty grew up in Rockville, Maryland, mostly unaware that Hunting Hill even existed. He later moved to Florida. After a trip to India, he "fell in love with stones." A perception that people in Florida"were only interested in fossils" was one reason for moving to Asheville. Its location was more central to his network of family and friends , plus it was a place with "more history and inherent interest regarding minerals."

Soon after Throwin' Stones opened, Rusty purchased a collection with 40 specimens of papagoite included quartz crystals just as they were becoming nearly extinct on the market. He surmises his profit on that purchase to have been approximately one thousand per cent over a five year span of selling them slowly. Since then, he's been to Messina four times to purchase crystals from the owner of the mine. During his most recent visit this past December, he believes he became the first American to be given permission to dig.

The conditions are brutal. With the crystals occurring in small pockets and veins in brecciated quartz, Rusty says it's possible to work all day in temperatures as high as 115 F, while contending with bugs, snakes, and scorpions, only to find a few broken pieces with small spots of color. Once extracted, many of the crystals bear a thick crust that can require not only multiple cleanings with oxalic and sometimes hydrofluoric acid, but also extensive manual work including using an air abrasive or high-power water spray.

The Messina crystals comprise approximately 20 per cent of Throwin' Stones' business. While Rusty doesn't get all of the material coming out of Messina, he believes that he is the source for the vast majority of the the "best" crystals on the market. He also mentions that the quality of most of the crystals being mined today is far superior to those collected between the 1970's and the 1990's. However, because of high operating costs and low yield, he voices concerns over how much longer the mine will continue to produce. He says that the mineralized zones are small and that they run deep into the ground at an angle that could preclude mining the crystals for much longer. In the near future he anticipates that the supply could dry up, leaving the market once again to rely on diminishing amounts of stockpiled material for which prices will continue to rise.

Rusty can keep you posted. You can contact him at "omrhythm at hotmail dot com."

Maryland's Good Old Days Recalled in Tucson

2010-02-13T08:00:00.000Z

Dr. Joseph F. Schreiber, Jr. is one of but a few collectors still around who enjoyed the kind of pickings that were available in Maryland during the first half of the last century. Such collectors who became geologists were mostly lured to a myriad other locations around the country or the world. Many, regardless of vocation, have passed on. Dr. Schreiber and his wife Doris have been living for the past 50 years in Tucson. That is when he joined the Department of Geology faculty at the University of Arizona in 1959. He retired, more or less, in 1992.

The permanent move out west actually came about after thirteen years. After serving in the U.S. Navy for 35 months during World War II, he used the G.I. Bill to earn his B.A. (1948) and M. A.(1950) degrees in Geology from the Johns Hopkins University. Summer jobs with the U.S. Geological Survey in New Mexico and petroleum geology field studies in the Rockies and West Texas added to his academic experience. In 1951, he worked at the Chesapeake Bay Institute in a combined study of the waters and bottom sediments of the Bay. The expertise learned in the bay studies led to a Doctoral Program at the University of Utah where his research was on the sedimentary record of Great Salt Lake. "But all along," says Dr. Schreiber " I kept up an interest in mineral collecting." The time in Utah allowed for "classic" collecting opportunities in that state as well as Colorado.

Similarly attractive collecting opportunities came up when he served on the geology faculty at the Oklahoma State University in Stillwater from 1955-1959. The father of one of his students operated a small lead-zinc mine in the Tri-State district of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. Whenever they struck a highly mineralized area, Dr. Schreiber was contacted so as to be on site to collect some of the beautifully crystallized minerals. Another bonus was helping to run the summer geology field camp located near Canon City, Colorado. Some weekends were spent with smaller groups of students collecting from some of the famous localities in central Colorado. What could have been better?

The permanent move "out west" came about when he, wife Doris, and two small daughters moved to Tucson. He was now in a rapidly growing soft rock (stratigraphy and sedimentology) program. The University of Arizona also had one of the best "ore deposit geology" programs in the U.S. Once again he was active in the summer geology field camp. What could have been even better?

Even so, after having experienced the best of so many great localities throughout the American West, Dr. Schreiber makes a point of referring to Maryland as "beautifully situated with igneous and sedimentary rocks and their metamorphosed equivalents, particularly where gneiss and metagabbros are present."

His interest in mineralogy and mineral collecting began in 1938 at the Natural History Society of Maryland as a member of the Junior Division. Charles "Charlie" Ostrander, who authored "Minerals of Maryland" in 1940 (still my personal Maryland Bible), was his mentor. Dr. Schreiber began collecting in the Baltimore area where he and other mineral collecting friends could travel on the Baltimore Transit street cars. Before the Woodberry Quarry dumps in the Jones Falls Valley gave way to progress, he recalls the collecting as having been "great!" From nearby, a street car ran north on Falls Road to points from which both the Bare Hills Copper mine dumps as well as the Bare Hills Chrome pits were but a short hike away. The vial of magnetite crystals from the former locality pictured in a vial at right are the largest I've ever seen from that locality. In the vicinity of the chrome pits, he recalls finding the best variety of minerals when combing the surrounding serpentine barrens, many of which remain accessible today.

Localities further north in Baltimore County were reached by car. A favorite was the Harry T. Campbell Quarry, now the Texas LaFarge Quarry, in Texas, MD. This is where he collected a specimen of wernerite, a mineral long considered to be an uncommon prize amongst Maryland collectors. It shows more attractively than any other Maryland wernerite I've had the privilege of seeing and is pictured at left.

The youthful Dr. Schreiber and his cronies were able to experience numerous still active quarries in a manner that collectors today could only dream about. If blasting were to happen on a Friday, the quarry was usually available to collectors on the weekends. Such a quarry was the long closed and inaccessible Gunpowder Quarry, which produced the almandine garnet pictured at right. The quarry workers would sometimes leave baskets of garnets that popped out of the gneiss left at their change shack. Dr. Schreiber also collected the allanite in gneiss (left) at the Gunpowder Quarry. Although allanite has been reported from various Maryland localities, this is the first piece I've seen and had an opportunity to photograph.

West of the Baltimore area in Carroll and Frederick Counties, Dr. Schreiber also got to visit many of the dumps and openings on private land where, mostly in the 1800's, copper and other metals were mined. The landowners became their friends and welcomed them. Many of these spots have since been built or paved over. Where possibilities for collecting remain, a much smaller percentage of landowners are as willing to so readily accommodate today.

The minerals pictured in this post are among the very few that Dr. Schreiber has kept since retiring. Most specimens were added years ago to the teaching collections and the University of Arizona Mineral Museum, which has stored them away. I would love to see and photograph some of them. However, immediately after the opening of a major new exhibit, with limited funding, and with the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show going on, this isn't the time to ask.

Tucson Ramblings

2010-02-06T11:00:00.000Z

Shown above are the Moroccan tents, hardly a highlight of the action in Tucson during these first two weeks of February. About as many dealers from Czechoslovakia, Australia, Russia, Brazil---and even more from China and India--- haul tons of rocks to a variety of Tucson spots every year. I don't understand how most of them make their numbers work. The Moroccans bring the same stuff every year: flats of cerussite with barite, goethite, aragonite, azurite, vanadinite, and plenty of fossils. Though the quality of the specimens in these tents doesn't seem to improve from year to year, the persistence of the dealers endures, and the haggling can be endless if one hangs around. For the wire silver piece at right, I chiseled a Moroccan dealer down from $250 to $80, then walked away. With a bit of tarnish, I would have been less concerned about the possibility that the specimen could be factitious.

This year, as every year, the quantities of pyrite from Peru amethyst from Uruguay, stibnite from China, and Indian zeolites are as ubiquitous as the Moroccan material. These, however, are not the only species that are particularly abundant. This year, for the first time, we're seeing a lot of very aesthetic blue apatite crystals in a calcite matrix from Slyudyanka near Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia such as shown at left. The amount of dioptase crystals from Altyn-Tybue kazakhstan like those pictured at right, not to mention the number of dealers selling them is yet more remarkable.

Quite auspiciously, I've scored some uncommon native metals this year at very reasonable prices. One example is native iron (shown at left) from Hungtukun massif, Taymyr Peninsula, Siberia, Russia. My source was Mikhail Anasov, whom I'm confident would not have sold it to me as native iron were it from a meteorite. Even harder to come by is native lead, of which I was fortunate enough to obtain for $20 the specimen pictured at right from Garpenberg, Sweden. And speaking of rare, how about native osmium, specifically the variety "iridosmine," of which 30 or more grains, none much larger than a needle point are mounted on a piece of cork in the microphotograph at left? They were sifted from the Crescent City Beach placers in Del Norte County, California. The dealer who sold them to me has a noteworthy variety of unusual offerings .

I'll be interviewing this dealer on Monday, Feb. 8, for what promises to be a fascinating post. It should be on line before the end of February.

Arriving in Tucson

2010-01-31T16:55:00.000Z

The point was getting to Tucson (by car from Baltimore) as early as possible. Early brings not only the greatest selection of quality material and new finds, but curiously the most forgiving numbers on numerous price tags. Friday, Jan. 29 marked the beginning of the "satellite" shows that start up two weeks before "The Big Show" at the Tucson Convention Center from Feb. 11-Feb. 14. While plenty of choice minerals at dirt cheap prices will still be around as all the hoopla concludes in two weeks, many of the best will cost more after passing through many hands over the next two weeks. Plenty else could go down in price by then, especially second rate material from dealers less than enthusiastic about packing it all up and shipping it home.

I first visited the biggest of these early shows, which as in past years was happening at Hotel Tucson City Center, formerly known as Inn Suites, St. Mary's and Granada. About half its 600 or so dealers were up and running by Friday, many more by Saturday. Though most sell minerals, a large minority do fossils or gems. As always, prices cover the map. The mood seemed upbeat relative to last year, when many dealers lost money because of the economy.

From the "Inn Suites," I headed to the Executive Inn at 333 West Drachman. In past years, dealers have occupied most rooms here, but not this year. Among the few who were set up , one from China sold me two wonderful hematite/quartz pieces for a fraction of what I would have expected.

The adjacent Minerals and Fossil Marketplace at West Drachman and Oracle appeared much as it did last year, with most of the same dealers in the same spots. Rock Deco had a couple flats of minerals from the Mammoth St. Anthony's Mine in Tiger from which I took delight in purchasing an affordable ($45) hand specimen of caledonite with leadhillite for my personal collection.

The Quality Inn at 625 E. Benson Highway is not to be missed. Most of the dealers hail from outside the United States, especially China, India, Russia, and Pakistan. Just about all the Chinese dealers were charging ridiculously high prices, having not yet figured out what the market would bear. But you will also find here Mikhail Anosov, who offered better values than I've observed in years from any of the myriad Russian dealers who annually descend upon Tucson. For aficionados of rare minerals, Germany's Gunnar Farber is a must visit at the Quality. All of Gunnar's minerals are mounted in clear plastic cases with price tags that end with the number (8)---$28, $38, etc.

Farther east, another enormous and definitely worth a visit venue is Tucson Electric Park. Unlike so many other nearby locations that are devoted exclusively to jewelry, the mix here is a hodgepodge of endless rough material, yard rocks to die for (see top picture), and enough minerals to be worth checking out. One dealer has thousands of flats of material, mostly adamite, mimetite, and hemimorphite from the Ojuela Mine in Mapimi, Durango, Mexico.

Most important is that Tucson has it all, enough to provide copy for this Mineral Bliss blog and inventory for Jake's Minerals well into 2010. I encourage readers to travel here and get in on it. Accommodations are easier than ever. Right next door to the Quality Inn show, the flashing sign at Motel 6 touted rooms for $45.95 on Friday, although by Saturday, they'd been raised to $49.95. One can count on rooms being available in the Tucson area---most likely reasonably decent ones for less than a C-note---even on the weekend of the Big Show.

See You in Tucson

2010-01-06T22:09:00.000Z

Mineral Bliss is preparing for the Tucson extravaganza and will resume in early February, 2010, soon after our arrival there.

Incidentally, to anyone who between Dec. 26, 2009 and Jan. 7, 2010, read the final Mineral Bliss post for 2009, which is actually the most recent post before this, please be aware that it's been edited to clean up excessive wordiness. The facts remain the same.

More Maryland Minerals from Harvard Museum

2009-12-26T23:06:00.000Z

These days the "haydenite" with "beaumontite" label that accompanies the above picture would read chabazite (in blocky crystals) with heulandite (less recognizable). Haydenite is eponymous with Horace Hayden, an early 18th century dentist, who is credited with its discovery. Early literature depicts haydenite as "a variety of chabazite." Mindat refers to it as a "synonym of chabazite." An easy Internet search reveals a somewhat similar story regarding the nomenclature behind beaumontite/heulandite.

Collected a century plus ago, it hailed from the Harris quarry, one of several long forgotten and filled in filled-in gneiss openings in Baltimore City's Jones Falls Valley. Harvard Mineralogical Museum Curator Carl Francis explained to me in a letter how Harvard obtained this specimen in 1912 as part of the A. F. Holden collection. Holden had purchased it in 1911 for $3 from the legendary mineralogist (and collector/dealer) Lazard Cahn. In his catalog, Holden had described the $3 as "a fearful price for this specimen: bought on Cahn's recommendation." Prettier for sure, but tinier is the chabazite collected here as shown in the micro-photograph at right. It is part of Harvard's vast micromount collection.

Chromian clinochlore is another Maryland piece of note in the Harvard Mineralogical Museum's collection. It's nomenclature is more convoluted than haydenite/chabazite or beaumontite/heulandite. Harvard received both the hand specimen at left and the micromount at right with labels identifying them as nacrite from "Cecil County Maryland near Texas," located just over the state line in neighboring Pennsylvania.

Dr. Francis knew these could not be nacrite, which is a polytype of kaolinite. Because of the locality and purplish red color, he said he would be comfortable labeling them as chromian clinochlore, for which the name kammererite is a synonym. . A more obscure and all but forgotten name for the species is rhodochrome, as referred to in Minerals of Maryland by Ostrander and Price. This book reports rhodochrome both at Bare Hills and Soldiers Delight, also localities in Harford County. In describing the rhodochrome from Maryland's State Line Pits, assuming the pieces shown were collected there, Minerals of Maryland brackets rhodochrome to suggest it's synonymous with penninite. Mindat describes penninite as a pseudo-trigonal variety of clinochlore for which pennine, japanite and miskeyite are additional synomyms. From my photographs, I could not determine whether these crystals were pseudo-trigonal.

I suspect that at one time Harvard's nacrite labels were linked to specimens such as the kaolinite at left. It too, was collected in Cecil County, near Iron Hill, not far from the State Line Pits. Could this particular piece bear nacrite, particularly the brown material at center? The single related reference in the list of Maryland minerals originally sent me by Dr. Francis notes "kaolinite group."

A few other Maryland pieces impressed me as noteworthy. Fred Shaefermyer's flat of Hunting Hill minerals included several rare species including pokrovskite and McGuinnessite. Their photographs are absent here because specimens showing equally well are already in our Maryland Minerals web site's slide shows at Flickr and Picasa. Those slide shows will soon include, however, the Hunting Hill desautelsite image from Harvard's micromount collection as it's shown at right.

Another curiosity from the micromount collection was labeled pharmacolite from the Pinto Railroad Cut in Alleghany County. The 20x photograph at left is insufficient for visual identification. When I first mentioned pharmacolite to Maryland mineral guru Fred Parker, he referred to the occurrence of such a rare arsenate in Alleghany County or for that matter anywhere in Maryland as "just silly." Later after my visit when I emailed him an image, Parker noted that it looked very different from the New Jersey pharmacolite with which he was familiar. The proof, he added would be in an x-ray or EDS analysis, perhaps a worthy undertaking for a Harvard mineralogy scholar.

Another mineral at Harvard I personally had not previously seen from a Maryland locality was vivianite. The substantial specimen pictured at right reached Harvard from an unknown source and was collected at a road cut along Wheeler Road in Oxen Hill, Prince Georges County. The only other vivianite locality I'm aware of in Maryland is a bog at Greenbury Point in Anne Arundel County, where Minerals of Maryland reported an occurrence in grey clay.

Closing out our three post series about The Harvard Museum's Maryland minerals is an example of the species that inspired my original communication with Harvard, namely chromite---in crystals specifically. The micro-photograph at left shows a portion from a hand specimen of Bare Hills chromite from the main gallery cabinet above which a similar looking piece was displayed under glass. Next to the latter had been the glass dish of chromite (actually magnetite) crystals we questioned last summer. The sparkle in this hand specimen enticed me to shoot the macro-photograph at left just before leaving. Regardless of what may or may not have ever been reported of chromite crystals from Bare Hills, this picture suggests their presence. I pass, however, at any attempt to isolate them and place them in a dish.

So there you have it, not only for our Harvard series but for posts during 2009 to the Mineral Bliss Blog. Our best wishes go out to all readers for a happy, prosperous, and wonderfully rocky 2010.

Harvard Maryland Mineral Update

2009-12-19T11:02:00.000Z

Mineral Bliss erred in the August 14 post when crediting the Harvard Mineralogical Museum with having but two Maryland minerals on public display. Clearly I neglected to read each of the hundreds of labels, particularly of species that failed to grab my attention or when not expecting to find Maryland minerals. In fact, five Maryland minerals were present.

We missed the humongous translucent lamellar talc that's pictured above. It's from an unnamed locality in Harford County. Harvard received it from an unknown source in 1875. Seeking clues regarding a more specific locality, I referred to my "Bible" for this sort of thing, Minerals of Maryland by Ostrander and Price( 1940, Natural History Society of Maryland). It noted an occurrence of "large green translucent sheets of talc" amidst the serpentine barrens surrounding Mine Fields. That would be my guess, but who knows?

Interestingly, the Museum's Curator Dr. Carl Francis also removed from the locked cabinet beneath the talc a well formed crystal of ilmenite about an inch in diameter. It was embedded in Harford County talc of a hue similar to that of the large sheet. Minerals of Maryland does not mention a locality in Harford County where both talc and ilmenite were known to occur. It does, however, note that in the vicinity of Dublin, the eminent early 19th Century mineralogist Earl Shannon reported ilmenite and garnets in "quartz-fuchsite." With hindsight, I find the resemblance between fuchsite (a variety of muscovite not often found in Maryland) and our talc to be interesting.

Coincidentally, one of the other Maryland pieces on display I missed in August was the ilmenite specimen at left from "near Dublin" in Harford County. It had reached Harvard through the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. Undisplayed in the wooden cabinet beneath it was a similar looking ilmenite crystal, which had also been previously housed at the Carnegie Museum. Its original label showed Chester, Massachusetts, for the locality. Meanwhile, the first of two Harvard attribution labels accompanying it gave the locality as "unknown." A second more recent such label named Harford County's Dinning Rutile Prospect. Minerals of Maryland does not mention ilmenite as occurring at the Dinning Rutile Prospect. This seems curious considering the size of the that crystal, which is pictured at right.

I also overlooked a specimen of coalingite from Hunting Hill. The piece in the picture at left was not displayed in the gallery on either of my visits. Rather, it came from a flat of Hunting Hill minerals donated to Harvard by National Rockhound and Lapidary Hall of Famer Fred Shaefermeyer. Since it closely resembled the specimen in the gallery, I photographed it instead because of time restraints and for the sake of convenience.

Additional Maryland Minerals at the Harvard Mineralogical Museum

2009-12-13T02:42:00.000Z

This week's post follows through on the August 14 and October 2 posts about minerals collected in Maryland on display in the Harvard Mineralogical Museum. The August post made the following assertion regarding undisplayed specimens stored in drawers:

With over 4,000 specimens from the Franklin, New Jersey environs, and 7,000 New England pieces, it’s likely that Harvard has additional Maryland minerals. What a treat the prospect of snooping through those drawers. Next visit, additional time will be available, and I'll have researched the protocol.

Such a visit happened this past week, the end result of correspondence regarding the Bare Hills chromite/magnetite controversy discussed in our October 2 post. Thank you again Harold Levey for egging me on to write that questioning letter to the Harvard Mineralogical Museum's esteemed Curator Dr. Carl Francis. Ultimately, it led to his being kind enough to spend the major portion of a busy day showing me where the minerals are kept and arranging for me to photograph the Maryland ones.

In addition to the few pieces displayed under glass in the Gallery, Dr. Francis removed other Maryland minerals locked beneath them in wooden cabinets. From a spacious lab and study area in the Museum's basement, he selected more Maryland pieces from the thousands of specimens in drawers surrounding the desk where he sits in our title picture. After making a special trip to another building where the micromount collection is kept, he walked with me across campus to a house where rows of floor to ceiling drawers filled with hand specimens line the basement. There he made several trips up a ladder to fetch those from Maryland, the most interesting of which we carried back to the museum in a shopping bag for me to photograph.

Upon leaving just before dark, it was clear to me the day's experience was to be a source of substantial content for future Mineral Bliss posts. How welcome to have this material to share during an upcoming six week period where Holidays and extensive travel could easily supersede the kind mineralogical pursuits covered at Mineral Bliss that are normally a routine part of my life. Here are a few likely topics.

Maryland minerals on display in the Harvard Mineralogical Museum that were missed during our August visit.

Maryland minerals of special interest that are not on display.

Curious issues regarding the identification of several Maryland pieces.

Stay tuned.

A Classic Pennsylvania Calcite

2009-12-05T15:41:00.000Z

The Mineral Bliss post from November 14, 2009, which described an escorted visit to the Delaware Mineralogical Museum, made the following statement: "I've deliberately refrained from mentioning one Pennsylvania specimen in particular to share its story as the sole topic of a future Mineral Bliss post."

It was the calcite specimen shown in the above picture from the Delta Carbonate Quarry, now known as the York Building Supply Quarry, in York, Pennsylvania. With a main crystal measuring about 4 1/2 inches across, I've never observed a more appealing example of this classic genre. Upon learning from the Delaware Mineralogical Museum Curator Sharon Fitzgerald that its original source was one of my favorite collector/dealers, I immediately decided to contact him.

Eric Meier of Wilmington, Delaware, is pictured at left behind tables of his inventory at the Delaware Mineralogical Society's show this past March. Trading as Broken Back Minerals, he was among the busiest dealers there. Likewise, at the September Gem Cutters Guild of Baltimore Show in the Howard County Fairgrounds, November's Roanoke Valley Gem and Mineral Show at the Salem,Virginia Civic Center, and other East Coast events. He carries substantial regional material. His prices are quite reasonable to begin with and become increasingly so for customers who purchase in quantity.

Eric informed me that a threesome also including his friends Bill Longacre and Joe Hoffman collected this magnificent calcite specimen together in 1993. They were at the bottom of the quarry when Hoffman noticed a small hole about 25 feet up a scalable slanted wall. By chiseling away at the brecciated limestone surrounding the hole, they succeeded in opening up a pocket completely lined with crystals. About eighteen inches high and ten to twelve feet wide, the pocket tapered back approximately eight feet. Once they'd opened the pocket, removing the crystals therein became more difficult. Limestone that was not brecciated surrounded them. The men shoved a blanket into the pocket to protect what crystals they could dislodge, then hammered and chiseled away. When finished, they agreed to divide the booty and rolled dice for first pick. Eric rolled a double six for the piece now in the Delaware Mineralogical Museum. It required minimal cleaning.

Skip Colflesh, whose ruizite find at Cornwall, PA, was the subject of the June 13 Mineral Bliss post, also collected large quantities of calcite at this York locality between 2000 and 2002 in the company of fellow legendary Pennsylvania collectors Bryon Brookmyer and Bob Weaver. Skip authored a well illustrated article about the genre that appeared in the September/October 2002 edition of Rocks and Minerals. In a recent Email to me, he mentioned "crystals up to ~8" and the subsequent discovery in 2003 of a pocket with even more diverse crystals.

The crystals are often twinned or stacked. Sometimes they appear ball-like. Their forms range from rhombs to prisms to scalenohedra. This diversity along with a distinctive orange/ honey/ amber coloration distinguishes them. Similar crystals have been collected at another nearby York Building Supply owned quarry known as the Thomasville Quarry. While both localities have been off-limits to collectors for years, plenty of calcite from them remain available on the market and grace both museums and personal collections.