Gold and Anatase in Harford County, Maryland

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.

Some Dazzling Maryland Microminerals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.