Photographing Fred Parker's Maryland Collection

Fred Parker was mentioned in last week's post as the "eminent Maryland field collector" and "valuable collaborator," who frequently accompanied Jeff Nagy to regional collecting sites. Within my personal mineralogical sphere, Fred is the final word on the subject of Maryland minerals. A mineralogist and second generation collector, he has authored numerous articles and papers including "The Minerals of the Hunting Hill Quarry, Rockville, Maryland," for Mineralogical Record, whose biographical archives feature him as well as his father prominently. Fred's collection of Maryland minerals is amazing. This week, he was kind enough to turn me loose with my camera and bare bones portable studio to photograph the most significant pieces in his Maryland suite for the Maryland Minerals website.

The barite crystal in calcite with dolomite from the Pinesburg Quarry near Williamsport, Maryland, is but one example. It was all but inconceivable to me that a such a specimen could ever have been collected anywhere in Maryland. My impression was similar regarding nearly every piece that I photographed from Fred's collection.

It's appropriate here to recall that in last week's post about Jeff Nagy's quest to revise and republish The Minerals of the Washington, D.C. Area, I promised word regarding a recently discovered galena deposit in Baltimore County. Along with some minor anglesite and cerussite, the find yielded the first pyromorphite ever to be reported in Maryland. This was an excursion that Jeff and Fred were in on together. At left is a photograph taken on the trunk of my car of a piece Jeff pulled from the back his truck last weekend during a Baltimore Mineral Society field trip to the Marriottsville Quarry. At right is the specimen that Fred held onto. The location of the deposit remains secret until it has been explored further.

At this moment, Fred is attending the Rochester Mineralogical Symposium, and I'm en route to New Orleans for its Jazz and Heritage Festival to indulge in another of my hobbies, namely wild music. Since collaboration on specifics could be difficult during the coming week and my Internet access could be limited, I've drafted a feature for Mineral Bliss about some of the particularly remarkable pieces from Fred's Maryland collection. By the time it's scheduled to post on May 2, Fred and I should have had an opportunity to catch up so that he can check the facts.

For my trip to New Orleans, a recently ordered book, Rock, Gem, and Mineral Collecting Sites in Western North Carolina by Richard James Jacquot, Jr., has just arrived in the mail. Hopefully, it will lead me to an interesting locality or two on the drive down or more likely as I'm returning during the first week of May. Word about anything this leads should be posted here on Sunday May 10.

Classic D.C. Collecting Guide Awaits Update

For several years, Jeff Nagy’s preferred mineralogical activity has been to visit as many mineral collecting sites as possible that are a reasonably short drive from his home in Damascus, Maryland, or his office, which is in Washington, DC. For such pursuits, his Bible has been the book Minerals of the Washington, D.C. Area, authored in 1980 by Lawrence Bernstein and published by the Maryland Geological Survey.

The book is a great source of information, covering the area's pertinent geology and in particular just about every mineral occurrence ever reported therein. The localities range from well known to quite vague (ie "Cubic pseudomorphs of limonite after pyrite are abundant in the soil around Glenelg.")

Over the last two years, it’s fair to say that Nagy has lived and breathed The Minerals of the Washington, D.C. Area. Guided by the book’s content as well as additional information from sources listed in its bibliography, he's visited over 100 pertinent localities. His experiences have led him to the following three conclusions: Many localities mentioned in the book have completely disappeared; new ones have been discovered; construction renders many localities to be transitory; and recent thinking has changed regarding some of the geology related to different rock deposits.

In short, Nagy has determined that The Minerals of the Washington, D.C. Area is due for an updated revision, and he is on a mission to make that happen. Thus far, he’s rewritten more than 70 pages, begun work on the photography (which will be in color this time), and enlisted the cooperation of the book’s original author, Lawrence Bernstein, to edit his work. Nagy hopes that the State of Maryland will provide funding to publish their final version. If not, he’s got alternative sources in mind and hasn’t ruled out the possibility of self-publishing. Interestingly, the original work bears no copyright.

The quest has led Nagy not only to collecting sites that haven’t been visited in years, but to new ones he's discovered. Eminent Maryland field collector Fred Parker has often accompanied him in many instances and has proven to be a valuable collaborator. Some of the most intriguing spots have been in or near Patapsco State Park in the vicinity of Ellicott City. Of particular interest is a galena deposit that Nagy and Parker "stumbled upon" by accident. In addition to galena they also encountered micro crystals of cerussite and anglesite as well as the first pyromorphite ever to be reported in Maryland. Stay tuned to Mineral Bliss for an upcoming post featuring photographs and more information about this find.

Nagy’s research has also led to a credible report that many years ago, a quartz crystal twenty inches long, seven inches across, and weighing forty pounds, was collected not far from Ellicott City. No quartz crystal anywhere near this size had otherwise ever been known to occur in Maryland. Thus far, Nagy has tracked down the descendants of the person who collected it and has been in touch with the museum in Minnesota to which his collection was willed. Convinced this crystal is in existence and probably in someone’s possession, his efforts to track it down continue.

Of tremendous significance to Nagy’s work is the logic that similar geological relationships and deposits are likely to produce similar minerals. Quite often, sought after conditions become accessible in the course of construction work where new collecting sites are uncovered. When it's houses or other buildings going up, the opportunities to collect are temporary. Spoils from other construction related localities, roadcuts for instance, occasionally remain accessible.

Of all the territory included in The Minerals of the Washington, D.C. Area, Northern Virginia was once the most prolific. For Nagy, it’s proven to be the most disappointing area "Everything’s been built over," he laments.

There’s plenty more to cover. The most recent dig was in the vicinity the old Patapsco Copper Mine in Carroll County, Maryland. Shortly before that, after obtaining special permission, he was able to access and explore the Liberty Copper mine dumps in Frederick County, Maryland. Only a few days ago, he got hold of some old maps that he believes will lead him to a long forgotten lead prospect in Frederick County. He figures "another year or two " before his new The Minerals of the Washington, D.C. Area is ready for publication, and the serious quest for a publisher has yet to commence.

Stalking Those Pennsylvania Minerals

The six inch long Pennsylvania opal that's pictured above is from the Dyer Quarry in Berks County, Pennsylvania. It was one of my purchases this past Saturday, April 4, at the Franklin County Rock and Mineral Club's annual show at the Shalom Christian Academy in Chambersburg, PA. From the same show, I also picked up the piece in the photograph at left (field of view 7 mm.) of cerussite needles in front of galena appearing to be altering to anglesite. That specimen is from the New Southwest Chester Mine dumps in Phoenixville. These beauties were but a couple of the several dozen minerals I purchased at this show. All were collected in Pennsylvania, and all were fairly priced.

The Franklin County Rock and Mineral Club's show was a true pleasure to attend. It happened as the Philadelphia Mineralogical Society's annual extravaganza was taking place just two hours away. Somehow, word only reached me a week before when mentioned by a collector at the Atlantic Micromount Conference in Elkdridge, MD. Word that Joe and Jeanne Dague would be selling was all I needed to hear.

To me, their presence means a diverse selection of Pennsylvania minerals and the opportunity to peruse, learn about, and purchase them at prices I'm happy to pay. Among the new species that transferred from the Dague's to my Pennsylvania suite last Saturday were lazulite from Peach Bottom in Lancaster County, tennantite from the Billmeyer Quarry also in Lancaster County, variscite from Flint Valley in Snyder County, anatase with brookite in Hopkins phyllite from Kline's Quarry in Hellam, York County; uranophane from the C.K Williams Quarry in Northampton County; and the most exquisite miniature cabinet cluster of hydromagnesite crystals I've ever seen. They are from the Cedar Hill Quarry in Lancaster County and pictured at right.

As the Dagues carefully wrapped all of them and more, I wondered across the aisle to Kerry Matt's table, only to be overwhelmed by even more fantastic Pennsylvania minerals. The opal pictured atop this feature and the cerussite needles below it were two of my purchases from Kerry, along with at least a dozen other specimens. One of those was a second Dyer Quarry Opal that ranked a glossy half page in Pennsylvania's Rainbow Underground, of which he is author, photographer, and publisher. About half of its 442 pages are on heavy glossy paper, the other half on an accompanying compact disk. All told, I would estimate the number of vivid and colorful images of minerals (and microcrystals) collected in Pennsylvania to be well over 2,000. I purchased my copy of Pennsylvania's Rainbow Underground from Kerry shortly after he published it in 2007 and continue to be dazzled and amazed every time I pick it up. You can purchase one as well by contacting him via Email (stoneman07@netzero.com). At $75, this book is not just a serious bargain, but an obvious and absolute must have for anyone with interest in Pennsylvania's remarkable wealth of collectable minerals.

After filling a flat with Kerry's minerals until the last dollar in my wallet had disappeared, it was back to the Dague's table to write a check. While settling up with Jeanne, I observed a gentleman at the other end of the table showing an album of mineral photographs to Joe. Within moments, the Dagues had introduced me to collector and serious mineral photographer John Passaneau. His remarkable work speaks for itself.

Two hours at this show provided me with nearly as many minerals as purchased over the course of two weeks in Tucson. It also awakened me to possibilities for additional Mineral Bliss features for down the road. Hopefully the Dagues, Kerry Matt, and John Passaneau will help me put some of them together.

Dennis Coskren and the Rarest of the Rare Earths

The 2 millimeter field of view microphotograph at left is of coskrenite. It was discovered by and is named after the mineralogist pictured above it, Dennis Coskren. At the Baltimore Mineral Society's 2006 Desautels Micromount Symposium, I obtained the piece in a trade with Dr. Coskren in exchange for a bjarebyite micromount that I'd just purchased from a dealer there.

This was my introduction to micromounting. I didn't even own a microscope yet and had shown up at the conference to observe what was going on and make a determination as to whether micromounting was a hobby that would be to my liking. An explanation of how a greener than bjarebyite novice got so quickly into wheeling and dealing with minerals of such complexity will be saved for a later post.

Coskrenite is a rare earth sulfate containing cerium, neodymium, and lanthanum. It is one of the first three naturally occurring rare-earth sulfates or oxalates known to sicence, a distinction it shares with levinsonite and zugshunstite. The type locality for all three of these minerals happens to be one of the best known and most popular hiking destinations in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountain National Park, namely Alum Cave Bluff. It hardly matters that collecting here---or for that matter anywhere in the park---is forbidden. For one thing, crystals of the pertinent rare earth minerals are much too miniscule to observe with the naked eye, or even through a loupe. Probably less than a cumulative gram's worth of all three species is known to have been collected at Alum Cave Bluff or anywhere else. Even so, the three minerals are products of a geochemical process that actively occurs at a number of other spots in addition to Alum Cave Bluff. This suggests not only a reasonable possibility that they exist elsewhere, but also that they could renew themselves within a relatively short time frame.

Dr. Coskren has spent more than a dozen years studying every aspect of the mineralogy of Alum Cave Bluff. The fruits of his labors are encapsulated in the article "The Minerals of Alum Cave Bluff," which appeared in The Mineralogical Record, Volumne 31, March-April, 2000. This precisely documented treatise makes for a most interesting read about a fascinating mineralogical realm.

Aside from being rare and and interesting, many of the rare earth minerals occuring at Alum Cave Bluff make beautiful micromounts. To say they're difficult to come by is understatement. I'm aware of only two such pieces that have ever sold, both of them on eBay. The first was a micro-speck of levinsonite for which someone in Russia paid more than $500 at auction . The other was a coskrenite micromount that was purchased from an an eBay store by scientist on behalf of a university in Australia.

This all goes to say that however dear that bjarebyite mount, I couldn't be happier about this trade that turned me into a micromount enthusiast three years ago. The bounty it reaped bore in addition to coskrenite the levinsonite crystal pictured at right---all in the same piece. I keep looking and looking and looking through my scope. Then I refer to Mindat and can't keep myself from wondering whether one of those little pink crystals near the coskrenite couldn't possibly be zugshunstite.

Bob Eberle's Baltimore County Digs

During the years since family and career responsibilities replaced his rockhounding agenda, Bob Eberle’s reputation for field collecting prowess has become almost legendary in Maryland mineralogical circles. At the Baltimore Mineral Society's March 18, 2009, meeting, Bob brought in some of his top-shelf finds and shared the stories behind them.

Many were from sites that Bob discovered himself. At some, the opportunity to collect was temporary. His "Harbor Tunnel Digs," for instance, was a former dump consisting largely of dirt, oyster shells, and gravel that had been excavated during the 1960’s construction of Baltimore’s Harbor Tunnel. The debris was later hauled away and dumped on land now covered by a sprawling commercial complex near where Nursery Road meets the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Amidst it all, Bob extracted some of his finest treasures. They included the magnificent 2 inch by 2 ½ inch almandine garnet at left; a pencil sized apatite crystal extending from a book of mica; and a sheet of mica bearing a flattened schorl tourmaline crystal next to an unflattened almandine garnet crystal in golf club/golf ball configuration.

Another temporary locality from the early 1980’s was a former Owings Mills hillside that was dug up and leveled to make way for the mall and rapid transit stop there today. The primary pickings here were beautifully faceted almandine garnets occurring in a "greenish talc-like schist." Some of these pieces have since found their way to collections around the world. In addition to the garnets, Bob, along with fellow Maryland field collectors Bob Meny and Larry Krause, located and painstakingly dislodged from a large quartz boulder what could be the finest kyanite ever collected in Maryland. The kyanite was a one time find.

No less impressive was the goethite from Oregon Ridge in Baltimore County. One summer afternoon, as his wife and kids enjoyed the public beach and swimming hole that for many decades has occupied this former iron mine site, Bob slipped away to the facility’s storm drains. The area appreared promising enough to inspire return trip at a later date. On that visit, after investing a couple of fruitless hours, he began digging out of boredom at an unpromising looking rock that was jutting from the soil. The more he dug, the larger and more resistant to removal the rock proved to be. Bob's persistence resulted in the specimen pictured at right.

Among his other finds were the drusy quartz stalagmites tipped with opal pictured at left. That specimen is from a long since built over construction site near the intersection of Route I-70 and Johnnycake Road. Another unlikely score was from a feeder stream to Loch Raven Reservoir. From it, Bob extracted a rock whose quartz surface had been smoothed down by nature to leave behind a remarkably unweathered curved schorl tourmaline crystal.

Not far from Loch Raven is Hunt Valley Mall. One of its entrance roads intersects York Road near Valley View Farms. From amidst the limestone excavated to construct this road, Bob collected pyrite. While pyrite is hardly uncommon in Maryland, a solid eight pound chunk like Bob found is presumably unheard of in these parts. Later on, from the ranks of boulders remaining today piled up near a restaurant where the road ends, he brought in and showed us a large diopside crystal that fluoresced a beautiful sky blue.

The most exciting story was saved for last. It happed along the north side of Washington Boulevard near I-695 where former embankments once yielded iridescent siderite and petrified wood was easy to find in the sand pits. Before givning way to sprawl a couple of decades ago, Bob found a dinosaur bone in the sand pits. He contacted the Smithsonian about it. Upon seeing a picture, they were interested. When Bob requested an appraisal, the Smithsonian refrained, citing the potential for disputes with the taxman. So after he donated the fossil, the Smithsonian expressed appreciation by presenting him with a custom made replica of the dinosaur bone and arranging a VIP tour of the Museum of Natural History for the entire Eberle family.

The kids are getting older now, and Bob gives every indication that his interest in collecting minerals is rejuvenating. If so, that he'll stumble upon new and undiscovered localities is pretty much a foregone conclusion. Hopefully, after enjoying first grabs, he'll be willing to share them.

The Mountain View Lead Mine in Frederick County MD.

The above photographs show microscopic occurrences of anglesite (left) and smithsonite (right) from rocks that were collected at the Mountain View Lead Mine years ago.

The opening is located several miles southwest of Union Bridge in Frederick County. Worked during the 1890's, it marks the only fully documented site in Maryland ever mined for lead. The Natural History Society of Maryland’s 1940 publication Minerals of Maryland, by Charles W. Ostrander and Walter E. Price, Jr., names the "minerals to be found" at this locality as follows:

Galena, white cleavage barite, chalcopyrite in masses and octahedral crystals, bornite, green transparent and gray opaque sphalerite, specular hematite, calcite crystals, orange colored calcite cleavages, pyrite, epidote, chalcanthite, quartz crystals, and traces of malachite and azurite. Also cerussite and sulphur (Williams)

After an earlier excursion to obtain special permission for the visit, my son Dylan and I maneuvered our way through some quite thorny terrain to the Mountain View Lead Mine openings on the chilly overcast afternoon of March 13, 2009. The surrounding area was deeply buried in leaves, which obscured any traces of dumps that could remain. What appeared at first to be tailings consisted instead of slate/shale eroded from an embankment.

We searched for minerals by penetrating the cooperative soil near the openings with the chisels on the back of our hammers, then looking carefully through mud covered rocks beneath for any that seemed inordinately heavy or whose surfaces had a rounded and/or weathered look. Such rocks, though scarce, when broken open, bore generous amounts of galena. They were the same kind of rocks that yielded the anglesite and smithsonite micromounts pictured above

Though we failed to locate any anglesite or smithsonite, we did note in these galena bearing rocks small amounts of chalcopyrite, bornite, sphalerite, hematite, malachite, and azurite, and micro quartz crystals. In other rocks, we observed some of the white cleavage barite, orange colored calcite cleavages, and epidote as mentioned in Minerals of Maryland. The only minerals named by Ostrander and Price of which we did not find evidence were chalcanthite, along with the cerussite and sulphur they stated had been reported by Williams.

Kicking Off the Mid-Atlantic Mineral Season

The weather is improving, the ground moist and easy to dig up. Tailings are fresh after the ravages of winter, and unwanted vegetation at a minimum. Otherwise, increasing numbers of shows beckon where the inventory is fresh from Tucson.

The sale on March 7, 2009, in West Chester, PA, of the late Bill Yokom's mineral collection was my first mineral event after a late February return from Tucson. Bill, who was once curator of the mineral museum at West Chester Universities, had also assembled a personal collection of worldwide minerals as well as fossils and lapidary slabs. As an afficianodo of Pennsylvania minerals, I'd been particularly intrigued over the likelihood of their presence for picking over. Though many of the best of them appeared to have been scooped up before my arrival, I did manage to score a Wheatley mine piece bearing an unusual abundance of red Wulfenite crystals amidst a crust of weathered pyromorphite and also a well-proportioned thumbnail sized specimen of zaratite and chrome antigorite from the State Line Pits.

However, my big deal of the day was the multicolored smithsonite from Sinaloa, Mexico, that's pictured beneath the title bar of this post . Only a few times a year does a mineral specimen come into my possession that excites me as much this one did. I was all but amazed that someone else hadn't already nabbed it.

Within 20 minutes, my flat was full and the amount of cash in my wallet insufficient to cover a celebratory lunch of alligator gumbo and an elkburger at the Half Moon Restaurant & Cafe in Kennett Square. Next stop was the Delaware Mineralogical Society's annual March Show at at Delaware Technical and Community College.
Business here appeared to be brisk, at least where the price was right. Things were going so well at Eric Meier's table that I hardly had a chance to catch up with him. Eric, pictured at right, trades as Broken Back Minerals and is a very active field collector of Phoenixville material from the dumps at the Brookdale, and Chester Mines. He gathers enough to offer some pretty nice pyromorphite, cerussite, galena, and anglesite (after galena) from these localities at very attractive prices.
Phoenixville specimens were well represented in one of numerous exhibits provided by the DMS for all to see. All of these were informative, and often regionally relevant as well. One exhibit featured mostly Phoenixville minerals, including the first cabinet sized vanadinite piece I'd ever observed from this classic locality.

One thing that really impressed me about the Delaware Mineralogical Society's show was its Junior Booth for kids. Put together to engage the interest of young people, it was the busiest part of the entire room. Its tables were loaded with minerals and fossils for sale, some donated by club members others collected on field trips. Among them were dozens of quite large rocks covered with beautiful light green nodular wavellite from the National Limestone Quarry in Mount Pleasant Mills, PA, that were selling 25 cents a piece. Nearly all of them were more attractive than the best I'd succeeded in digging up over the course of four hours on a Baltimore Mineral Society field trip to that locality in June, 2007.

It seems to me that we are living in an age where the allure to young people of natural history has become increasingly overshadowed by more temporal pursuits, and I find the situation to be regrettable. That was certainly not the case here today, and the Delaware Mineralogical Society's success at getting all these kids involved is just one more thing they're doing right.

Tucson

O.K., soon enough Mineral Bliss will find its way closer to home, namely Baltimore, Maryland. That's after conception during a period of travel, which produced this and the past several features. Staggering the posting dates has allowed time to reflect and chart a course.

The travel entailed two weeks of driving to and from Baltimore to Tucson and back to enjoy two weeks in between at the biggest annual mineral gathering on earth. Despite a shattered economy, enough went on in Tucson from the end of January until Feb. 15 to keep Mineral Bliss posting for a lifetime. If you've never been, Manhattan megadealer John Betts's timeless overview makes for an apt quick introduction.

With the wheeling and dealing in motels and tents still happening, each year's action comes to a head Thursday through Sunday the second weekend of February at the "main show" in the Tucson Convention Center. For both looking and purchasing, this is where the largest selection of world-class minerals comes together under one roof. Each year's main show has a theme. Year before last, the theme was the Minerals of Australia. Last year it was Minerals of the United States. This year the theme was "Mineral Oddities."

Except at the shows themselves, much of this year's Tucson talk related to how the global economic crisis would impact this year's extravaganza. The cost is considerable for dealers with their rocks, helpers, and display materials to travel here from all over the globe, set up shop, then tear down and head home. As predicted, the number of attendees was less than in past years. Most of the dealers with whom I spoke, however, were upbeat. Consensus was that overall sales were down a bit from last year, but no more so than expected.

As always, prices varied enough that the difference between a $25 specimen and and a four figure piece could occasionally appear subtle. For the most part, asking prices seemed about the same as last year. I like to think of minerals as hard assets, just like precious metals, which of course are extracted from minerals and often---as in native gold and native silver---mineral specimens in their own right.

If my thinking is on target, compared to the way precious metals prices were soaring at the commodity exchanges, Tucson this year was a bargain.

Jerome, Arizona

Perched on Cleopatra Hill around the site that was once Arizona's largest copper mine is the former mining town of Jerome, Arizona. Though prostitution, gambling and substance abuse once earned it a reputation as "wickedest town in the west," a tourism web site touts Jerome as "America's most vertical city" and also "the the largest ghost town in America." Other literature refers to it as "the most unusual and interesting town in Arizona." Otherwise, Jerome has become best known over the last 20 years as an art town.

Founded in 1876, Jerome's population ultimately grew to 15,000 by the 1920's. Mining operations slowed thereafter first during the Great Depression and again after the end of World War II. By 1953, all the copper, silver, lead, zinc, and gold mining operations had closed. Though approximately 50 souls remained, many buildings (including the jail) had succumbed to the town's steep slope, and Jerome became best known as a ghost town.

By the 1960's, Jerome became a popular destination for hippies and artists. Their presence began to attract new inhabitants, who along with those few remaining mining era holdovers, were eager to see the town preserved. Through many of their efforts in conjunction with the Jerome Historical Society, Jerome became a National Historic Landmark in 1967.

Notwithstanding the preservation, enough old buildings continue to dislodge and slide downhill to keep alive the legacy that continues to attract ghost town aficionados, history buffs, ever more artists, a few eccentrics, and plenty of just plain tourists. So why not more rockhounds?

Mineral collecting is not among the myriad activities that Jerome touts to visitors. Except for a few ore samples in Jerome's Mining Museum, minerals don't seem to be a very big deal here. Regardless, the museum is a must-see for any visitor whose curiosity is at all aroused.

Of just as much if not more interest to rockhounds should be the mile or so drive heading north to the Gold King Mine and Ghost Town (once the “suburb of Haynes). On either side of the road, the tailings and dumps are everywhere and often appear to be quite accessible. The Gold King attraction itself is the bastion of Don Robertson, its eccentrically colorful, engaging and opinionated caretaker and his wife. Don pursues a mission of maintaining and keeping running as many as possible of the area's abandoned vehicles and machinery with help from the proceeds of tourists.

"Don was glad to share with me that directly downhill from the parking lot, where the dirt road becomes paved, the rockpiles along the side of the road could prove interesting to rockhounds. I checked them out and found plenty of “peacock ore (bornite, chalcopyrite, chalcocite and whatever else)” malachite, and some small drusy quite oxidized nodules that suggest austinite or conichalcite. At left are images of either side of a rock that bears a maximum of all the characteristic material.

After heading on to Tucson for two weeks and not observing a single rock from Jerome, I ran an Internet search and found two pertinent items. Listed on eBay from a seller in France was a cab referred to as “Eternalite,” the description of which somewhat described the aforementioned "peacock ore." More interesting to me was a micromount of cuprite (var. chalcotrichite) offered by Dakota Matrix Minerals for $3.50. Sight unseen, I ordered it, and paid twice again the cost to cover the shipping component. It awaited me upon my arrival home from Tucson and is pictured at right. I'm delighted with it.

The Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest

As another diversion enroute to the Gem and Mineral show in Tucson, I love it that these two natural wonders are right next to each other and comprise a single National Park served by a 28 mile main road.

The Park’s north entrance, which leads first into the Painted Desert, is off exit 311 of I-40 about 40 miles west of the New Mexico border and 24 miles east of the town of Holbrook, Arizona. The road begins by heading north through the Painted Desert for a few miles before looping south beneath I-40 for an additional 20 miles, mostly through the Petrified Forest before ending at Arizona Route 180 about 19 miles east of Holbrook.

Considering my multiple hobbies of mineralogy, photography, and hiking, this is about as good as it gets. The Painted Desert, which comprises the north part of the park, is particularly conducive to photography just about any time of day. Except for its clay "teepee caps" the Painted Desert is carved from sandstone where colors determined mostly by carbon content range from white to various shades of gray and brown, as well as red where iron oxide is present. The wonderful light greens at lower elevations are desert vegetation.

My main regret is becoming so preoccupied with photographing from viewpoints along the main Park Road that I missed walking the easy one-mile round trip Rim Trail extending between Tawa and Kachina points. It's the only opportunity for Painted Desert oriented walking except for a longer Wilderness trail recommended for overnight campers.

Other trails are less about the Painted Desert, more about the Petrified Forest. I walked two of them: the one mile Blue Mesa trail, and the Crystal Forest Trail. The Blue Mesa trail offered more geological diversity as well as a comfortable workout. What attracted me most about the Crystal Forest Trail was the ubiquity of colorful agatized wood everywhere along the trail.

Words on a warning sign posted on an information board at one of these trailheads impressed me. Its message was that a piece of petrified wood collected outside the National Park could be purchased for $2.00. A piece collected illegally inside the park costs $350 in conjunction with criminal charges of theft from the U.S. Government.

Not until 1962, did the area receive National Park stature. Evidence of human habitation, however, goes back 10,000 years. Petroglyphs, in fact are one of the Park’s attractions. I was amazed to see so much petrified wood still there.

The most impressive concentrations of the petrified remains of trees from 250 million years ago are along the trails leading from the Rainbow Forest Museum at the south end of the Park. They are the Long Logs Trail, which has the Park’s largest concentration of petrified wood; the Agate House Trail leading to a pueblo constructed from petrified wood; and the Giant Longs Trail, which passes the longest petrified log in the park. These three trails can be combined into a two mile loop. Having walked it all two years earlier, and with the Park about to close for the evening, I missed it this trip.

Next year, en route to Tucson, I’ll be sure to catch them again, and for sure the trail between Tawa and Kachina points overlooking the Painted Desert.

THE RON COLEMAN QUARTZ CRYSTAL MINE

As any American rockhound should know, the countryside surrounding Hot Springs, Arkansas, is like nirvana. Within easy driving distance are Magnet Cove, an actual field of diamonds, and about a dozen accessible places to collect quartz crystals. Ubiquitous rock shops also have plenty of local materal that typically sells at fair, if not bargain prices.

For quartz crystals, a visit to one of numerous public quartz crystal localities is likely to prove a ticket to both fun and value. The fee to collect is rarely more than $20, usually less.

Three years ago when passing through in February en route to Tucson (then as now), I either telephoned or made a quick stop at most of these locations to gain perspective. With but one day to collect(then as now), I picked the Ron Coleman quartz crystal mine.

To find it, take Route 7 to Jessiville and look for signs. Access is from a large affiliated rock shop at the end of a dirt road. Collectors recieve a burlap bag in which to carry their treasures. The crystals are mined in deep pit that's off-limits to visitors. However, for $20 (less for kids and seniors) the extensive tailings are available to comb over and dig. They are routinely topped off with fresh material from the pit.The fee is good for the entire day, and collectors can leave and come back as they please. Anyone who fails to collect $20 worth of quartz crystals can request a refund.

I like that winter is not a busy period. Not only are the dumps less picked over than in high season, but the chance of showers is greater. Rain darkens the dirt and makes the colorless to milky crystals easier to detect.

Most of the crystals are single, some are twinned, and fadens are not uncommon They range in size from miniscule to about a pound. One need but crawl about the pilings with a trowel to find crystals at the rate of about one a minute. The more experienced collectors usually opt to dig into the tailings, one spot at a time, in the most recently replenished areas .They use various tools such as shovels trowels and hand rakes. The only other collector except me on this chilly recent January afternoon used a homemade hoe/wedge/hook type contraption he’d fabricated from farm equipment.

He was Obe Willix, a friendly jovial resident of the area who’s been a collector/dealer most of his life. He favors finding spots that seem promising and digging at them quite extensively, one spot at a time. Since crawling around the surface to cover as much area as possible had worked for me before and to spare my back, opted to crawl around as in the past.

Every once and a while I checked on Obe. He was collecting at least as many crystals as I was, significantly more of them larger than mine. It interested me that three years ago, I’d been able to score at least as many of those larger crystals within a similar time frame by simply scanning the surface of the tailings.

Perhaps the pickings were leaner now that three years had passed, or maybe the soil was more rain-darkened. Next time, though, I think I'll dig.

Introducing Mineral Bliss

I’m not very religious, but there’s this feeling that the gods could be with me when it comes to the pursuit of collecting minerals, dealing in them, photographing them, and writing about all that relates to them.

Mineral collecting was a hobby and a passion for me in those pre-adolescent years before so many other concerns took over. After that, I all but forgot about minerals. From time to time, I pondered the question of what to do with all the rocks from my childhood collection that had been packed up so many years ago. The important thing was that most of them somehow remained intact, unlike the moving crate full of mid-fifties vintage baseball cards my mother threw away.

Not until one springtime afternoon when I was 55 was the spark re-ignited. My wife Nina and I had been tubing on Deer Creek in Harford County, Maryland, with our friends Mike and Judy. After a brief shower interrupted our bliss, the question arose: "What to do now?" Judy mentioned that her brother was caretaker on a nearby farm where one of the cornfields, when recently plowed---as was the case right then--- had yielded him numerous arrowheads.

Most were fabricated from white quartz and said to be particularly easily spotted when the soil was darkened by a bit of rain. Within a half-hour, we were crawling around in mud and managing to pluck about an arrowhead every two minutes. It was the kind of fun that I’d jump at the chance to do again and again. Unfortunately the opportunity didn’t arrive. It wasn’t until nearly a year had passed before it dawned on me how much the experience of collecting those arrowheads related to the all but forgotten joy of having collected minerals nearly a half-century earlier.

Before long, I’d searched the recesses of our attic and unpacked a box of minerals from my childhood collection. Suspecting that rocks could soon be all over the house, Nina suggested an area in the basement into which cabinets for them could be easily built. Shortly thereafter, I discovered eBay, and was taken with how inexpensive some minerals were at auction. The following February, I flew to Tucson for the final weekend of its grand Gem and Mineral Show and became further hooked.

For the next six years, civic and occupational commitments restricted my pursuit of minerals to an occasional hobby that would be fun to take up later in life. I stuck to my guns on that intention and now at the age of 64 have advanced into dealing in minerals, micromounting, being active in the Baltimore Mineral Society, and starting the web site Marylandminerals.com. That’s about minerals collected in the state of Maryland. Now there’s this blog, which should be good for a post a week.

And with that, it’s off to Tucson in my car to the Gem and Mineral Show, where the action begins the end of January and continues until Feb. 15. I’ll spend a week getting there, stopping along the way to crawl around the tailings of the Ron Coleman Quartz Crystal Mine in Jessieville, Arkansas, take in the Petrified Forest after crossing into Arizona, and hopefully also have time to visit the former mining town of Jerome.