The 2015 East Coast Gem, Mineral and Fossil Show

The experience of attending Martin Zinn's annual East Coast Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show at the Better Living Center of the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield, Massachussetts is much the same from year to year and a high point for most  most serious East Coast collectors. This year's show ran from Friday August 7 through Sunday, August 9.  As always, we made a point of attending on Friday, which is less crowded and offers attendees a first shot at the bounty for sale. 

As at any large show, there are magnificent as well as ugly mineral specimens to see and to purchase from different dealers selling comparable material at prices all over the map with plenty of bargains in the mix.  The show also provides a great opportunity to catch up with mineral friends well as to learn about new East Coast finds.

Prominent among a limited number of such new East Coast finds available for purchase this year

were the amethyst crystals that Jason Baskin was offering at Jay's Minerals.  He had recently uncovered them from  a pocket in Windham County, Connecticut. Jason deferred on   information regarding a more specific locality in that county pending publication of an article he is writing for a major mineralogical publication. Mostly small single crystals  or aggregates of such crystals,  their color and clarity were impressive. Prices began at less than $10. This was the second year in a row that Jason has featured a new East Coast find. Last year's was a distinct genre of pyrope-almandine garnets in graphite from Erving, Massachussetts, of which he still had plenty in stock.

Another purveyor, Geologic Desires, can also be counted upon year after year to have its share of exclusive East Coast genres collected near its home base in St. Lawrence County, New York.  That's because owner Michael Walter has obtained exclusive privileges to collect on select private farms in that county.  These localities have yielded  an impressive supply of killer tourmaline (var.) dravite such as shown at left, as well as good peristerite, diopside, uvite, and hexagonite. Michael also has for sale an attractive selection of worldwide minerals.

The show is also certain to have at least a booth or two featuring private collections from which buyers can cherry-pick. This year, Lambert Minerals had such a booth, pretty much the entirety of which offered specimens from the collection once owned by Peter Duncan, a resident of Ottawa, Canada. Among them was the one pound, two ounce brazilianite cluster pictured at right.

For the greatest number of bargains, no other dealers could begin to compete with the hundreds of  keystone (that's half price) specimens offered by Dan and Diane Weinrich. Shoppers were scarfing them up as fast as Dan and Diane could pull them out of flats to place on tables adjacent to cabinets bearing world class specimens priced as high as $40 grand. The Weinrich's have  similar bargain tables each February at Tucson in a room adjacent to the lobby at the Tucson City Center Hotel (Inn Suites) during the two weeks before the action moves to the city's Convention Center. Always prominent among the Weinrich bargains are excellent specimens of calcite and chalcopyrite from the thousands they have been able to source from miners at the Sweetwater Mine at Viburnum Trend in Reynolds County, Missouri. Just as notable, though smaller and fewer in number, are  rare species that consistently find their way to these bargain tables. We  noticed  specimens of  keckite, bobdownsite, dickthomssenite, and shcherbakovite,

At this and numerous shows all over the world, German rare species dealer Gunnar Farber  always has available the widest selection of rare species, some obscure enough to be completely off the radar of the most knowledgeable collectors. Some have only  recently been approved by the International Mineralogical Association and subsequently  published.  Also, more than several specimens from various localities in Chile and at least one this year from Canada can always be found displayed for sale in front of a sign that reads "discovered by me."

Kristalle, which is based in Laguna Beach, California, is high-end to  the point that only the most well-heeled collectors are in a position to do more than gawk when checking out what's for sale in its glass cabinets.  However, at the far end of one cabinet were several specimens that we found to be inordinately affordable, Two were Pennsylvania pieces including the hemimorphite shown at left from Friedensville in Lebanon County's Saucon Valley. While far from comparable to the ubiquitous as well as spectacular hemimorphite specimens from several localities in Mexico, specimens of the quality pictured at right, when from Pennsylvania, are viewed by that state's cognoscenti as a treasure. Standing nearby was the well-known Pennsylvania collector Joe Polytka in the midst of taking notes for the article he writes about the East Coast show each year for Mineralogical Record.  He described the Friedensville hemimorphite pictured at left as "something you don't see anymore." The $60 price tag was a relatively miniscule fraction of the amount that Kristalle asks and is paid for the vast majority the specimens it offers for sale.

Numerous specimens at this show, mostly from high end dealers, are comparable in quality, value, and aesthetics to those in the 50 cabinet display that greets showgoers as they enter the building. These exhibits always represent a private collection of a renowned collector.  This year's display featured specimens from the personal collection of Marty Zinn,  promoter of this show and others, including the famous Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show in February at the aforementioned Tucson Hotel City Center (Inn Suites), It tends to stop many showgoers in their tracks as they enter. Others are more eager to keep moving to reach the bargains as soon as possible,  then enjoy the exhibits upon leaving.

A Truly Great Overlooked Maryland Locality

Deserving  serious recognition in Maryland's mineralogical circles for the specimens it once yielded is the defunct Farmers Cooperative Limestone Quarry near the crossroads of New London in Frederick County. The quarry, which produced a dolostone primarily of Wakefield Marble laced with phyllite, ceased operations in 1973. 

The locality found its way to Mindat  thanks to Dr. William Cordua,  now retired  as Professor of Geology at the University of Wisconsin. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Cordua has written more than 50 professional publications, most relating to Wisconsin's geology and/or mineralogy. Among them is  a compendium of Wisconsin species that appeared in  Rocks and Minerals. More thorough is the database of Wisconsin minerals he maintains for the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey. Now a member of Mindat's Management Group, he has enhanced that site's listings for species and/or localities in nine other states, including  Maryland's  Farmers Cooperative Limestone Quarry. Dr. Cordua collected there between 1967 and 1969 while  a geology student living near Washington DC.

He recently decided to  "de-acquisition" some of his collection.  Included were the specimens he collected at Farmers Cooperative,  His wish was for them to “wind up with people who appreciate Maryland minerals.”

The suite appears worthy of consideration as one the most interesting and significant Maryland mineralogical finds in last 50 years. We are not aware of a more aesthetically pleasing Maryland-collected aurichalcite specimen  than the one pictured in our title image. Somewhat visually drowned  out  by virtue of colorless transparency are numerous well defined accompanying hemimorphite crystals. The image at right better captures similar crystals from  another rock in the suite. As with the aurichalcite, we are unaware of a better example of what little Maryland hemimorphite is known to exist.

None of the specimens  in the suite amazed us more than the
transparent green sphalerite crystals on calcite pictured at left. Of obvious gem quality, these crystals form an aggregate extending about  8 centimeters. 

Also significant and pictured at right is green/gray botryoidal crystalline smithsonite inside a 6.5 millimeter vug at a contact point with quartz. It is in a rock richly graced with sparkling blebs of galena. Interestingly, galena is not one of the more abundant species among the primary ore minerals from Farmers Cooperative. Far more common are sphalerite, bornite, and chalcopyrite.


 All  three aforementioned sulfides are ubiquitous in thin ore filled veins occasionally running through the Wakefield Marble for which the quarry was mined. Less common and found separately, were crystals of chalcopyrite, rare in Maryland, especially in association with calcite. The several examples that Dr. Cordua collected  rested on marble topped by drusy calcite, as pictured at left..

Of particular interest is  the specimen shown in the photomicrograph at right. The main crystal is goethite pseudomorph after chalcopyrite with epitaxial prisms of malachite. As most of the malachite from  the quarry was of  was of a darker green hue, Dr. Cordua had originally suspected that these beautiful crystals could be dioptase.

Farmers Cooperative Limestone Quarry is not mentioned in The Natural History Society of Maryland's 1940  Minerals of Maryland, by Ostrander and Price. We suspect the quarry may not  have existed then. However, it is one of but two Frederick County localities mentioned in Maryland Geological Survey's 1981 Minerals of the Washington, DC Area by

Lawrence Bernstein. Among minerals observed in Dr. Cordua's suite  that we have not covered but are are listed in that publication are baryte, hematite, manganese oxides (pyrolusite) as dendrites, and chlorite. Bernstein also noted calcite crystals, but may not have been aware that some of the smaller ones werer as beautiful as the twins  in the image at left, which  Dr. Cordua shot.


Bernstein did not mention hydrozincite, It occurs in white crusts that are less than remarkable to observe until placed under shortwave ultraviolet light as shown  at right.

Minerals of the Washington DC Area  does  mentions gold, cuprite, linarite, and rosasite, all on the basis of "oral communication." The late Herb Corbett provided the oral communication regarding rosasite, which he described as "crusts of tiny green crystals."  However, an x-ray analysis that Dr. Cordua submitted.suggests that this material was aurichalcite, which the book did not mention.

Another publication with particularly interesting information regarding the geology of Farmers Cooperative is  Heyl and Pearre's 72 page Copper, Zinc, Lead, Iron, Cobalt, and Barite Deposits in the Piedmont Upland of Maryland, published in 1965 by the  Maryland Geological Survey. Minerals it names from Farmers Cooperative include are limited to  sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite "and their oxidation products."  These "sulfides, Heyl and Pearre noted, "occur as replacements of the (Wakefield) marble at the contact of the adjacent Ijamsville Phyllite, and in thin replacement veins, bunches and stringers within the marble band."  The veins, they added, are similar to those at the New London (copper) Mine.

It is intriguing how many species species included in Dr. Cordua's suite have been reported  at three nearby long defunct and grown or built over localities: the aforementioned New London Copper Mine; the Unionville Zinc Mine; and the the Mountain View Lead Mine.. All of these localities, along with Farmers Cooperative Limestone Quarry, are  located within a few miles of each other. The ore and collectible  minerals in Dr. Cordua's  suite comprise a significant partial composite of such species,

In a recent email, Dr. Cordua contributed some updated thoughts:.

The similarity in mineralogy at Mountain View and so forth - distinctive stuff like the green sphalerite - I think prove a commonality in origin to the deposits.  Not sure if the formation names haven't changed as a consequence of subsequent remapping. Certainly their interpretation has. I recall plate tectonics just coming in when I was an undergraduate. The Piedmont is certainly a mess of interlocking terranes, likely hacked up now by major faults but, hey, that made for the diverse mineralogy of the state.

None of the literature mentioned thus far provides as much detail as Dr. Cordua's  field notes taken when he collected these specimens.  In addition to species thus far described, they cite manganoan calcite, chalcocite, tenorite (var.) melaconite) covellite, siderite, and celestine.  The notes suggest varying levels of uncertainty regarding  a presence of native sulfur as well as secondary lead minerals  anglesite, cerussite, all known to have been found in microscopic quantities at the nearby Mountain View Lead Mine.


Today, what is left of the Farmers Cooperative Limestone Quarry is filled with water and posted with a no trespassing sign. The remains of an old wooden building still stand, and evidence of trenches and a small foundation are discernible. We saw no evidence of any remaining dumps, especially through the thick midsummer vegetation,

Getting Started in Mineralogy by Gemma Burns

Publisher's note:

Mineral Bliss always been receptive to posts written by guest writers who have something to say that's pertinent.  Gemma Burns, a freelance writer, submitted the first such article that we have received and chosen to publish.  We were impressed as to how she managed to compact the essentials to getting started in our hobby into an article of appropriate for a Mineral Bliss post. 

Mineralogy is a fascinating and rewarding area of interest. Not only is it very good for you in general [1] to have a hobby, but the study of mineralogy can vastly improve your general knowledge and view of the world [2]. However, if you’re just getting started up, it’s easy to make pitfalls, to head in the wrong direction, and to make ill-judged decisions through want of better knowledge. Here, therefore, is a short guide to getting started in mineralogy. There is of course no single surefire route to this, and lots of people get into this in lots of different ways, but these tips might help if you’re a bit uncertain!

A lot of mineralogy can be (and is) learned ‘on the job’ – plenty of people got into mineralogy by finding an interesting rock and experimenting with it. However, if you’re really serious about this science, you’d do well to familiarize yourself with the theoretical basics. There are a wealth of books, magazines, journals [3] and websites out there which can help you to increase your store of rock-based knowledge (including our own website!). If you’re just getting started, it would probably be wise to grab yourself a nuts-and-bolts handbook [4] rather than leaping in at the deep end with the more involved academic stuff.

Once you’ve familiarized yourself with some basic mineralogical theory, it’s time to get down to the real business of learning about rocks on a practical level. A great way of doing this is to get a starter kit which contains samples of rocks all the way up the Mohs Scale of Hardness (well, perhaps not quite all the way up – you’d be hard-pressed to find a kit-maker who’ll put a diamond in a practice kit!). Play around with the samples, learning about what they can and cannot tolerate. Not only will this allow you to get close to the object of your hobby – the rocks themselves – it will also aid your understanding of them on a practical level, and give you some valuable experience which will help you to know how to handle various minerals in the field.

Mineralogy isn’t dangerous if done correctly, but it isn’t always the safest of hobbies either. This is part of what makes it so much fun! Your life as a mineralogist may see you heading for some precipitous rockfaces, or putting yourself in the path of falling rocks. If you’re careful and you know what you’re doing, then you’re unlikely to get into any trouble. But it’s worth brushing up on rock safety procedures and ensuring that you and your kit are ready for all eventualities [5] just in case. Get yourself some steel toe-capped boots, some goggles to protect your eyes when chipping out rocks, a helmet, some tough gloves, a first aid kit, and some hi-viz in order to let workers see you if you’re collecting in a quarry. If you’re really serious about safety, you might also want to grab a Geiger counter in order to monitor the minerals you’re working on. Some rocks can emit surprisingly high levels of radiation [6]!

Apart from safety concerns, you’d also be advised to prepare well for any collecting expedition. Get a good geologists hammer, a chisel, a magnifier, and a bag to put your kit and specimens in. Make sure that you’ve got everything you need before setting out – there’s nothing more irritating than finding a really promising specimen, and being unable to get it out for want of a chisel. It’s also really important to get the permission of any relevant landowner whose land you may wish to work on. Not only will they be able to tell you if you’re likely to be disrupting anything of import with your activities, mineralogists who trespass [7] bring the whole field into disrepute. Finally, you’re advised to obtain things like polish and microscopes to aid you in cleaning up and examining your specimens. Other than that, there’s little else you can do apart from get down to the rockface and learn!

[1] Cynthia Ramnarace, “Why You Need To Have A Hobby”, Business Insider, Mar 2014
[2] R Detrosier, "The benefits of general knowledge; more especially, the sciences of mineralogy, geology, botany, and entomology, being an address delivered at the opening of the Banksian Society, Manchester. On Monday, January 5th, 1829", Hathi Trust
[3] Mineralogical Society Of America, "Select Publications"
[4] Sarah Garlick, “National Geographic Pocket Guide to Rocks and Minerals of North America”, National Geographic
[5] Compare "Looking after your collections"
[6] Thomas Harding, “Museum’s rock collection was highly radioactive”, The Telegraph, Feb 2001

[7] Cornell University Law School, “Trespass”

The Early History of the Baltimore Mineral Society

Your truly wrote  the article that follows for the October, 2014 edition of the Baltimore Mineral Society's monthly newlsetter, The Conglomerate,  Recently, the Eastern Federation of Mineral and Lapidary Societies awarded it "Trophy" recognition in the "Written Features" category for articles that appeared during 2014 in the monthly newsletters.

                    The Early History of the Baltimore Mineral Society
                                                 by Jake Slagle

Depending upon whom you ask, Baltimore Mineral Society can trace its beginnings to 1950 or 1951.  According to charter member Harold Levey, that is when Paul Desautels, then a professor of chemistry at Maryland State Teachers College (now Towson State University), appeared at the Natural History Society of Maryland to see its mineral collection. At the time, NHSM occupied two buildings in Bolton Hill. One was at 2101 Bolton Street. The other, next door at 2103 Bolton Street, housed its mineral collection.   Although at least one cabinet of minerals adorned a main front room, the building’s kitchen was home to NHSM’s more serious collection, which was well organized in drawers that opened and closed. Additional minerals were packed away in the basement.

Charles Ostrander, after more than a decade of being in charge of NHSM’s minerals, had recently

moved to Harford County.  Mr. Levey (pictured at right), then in his late 20’s, was serving as de facto curator. Mr. Levey recalls that during his visit, Mr. Desautels expressed an interest in arranging for gatherings of people who were interested in minerals where they could talk about them.

Mr. Levey, along with his colleagues at NHSM, the late Ed Geisler, John Glaser, the late Charlie Smith, and Jack Kepper were receptive to the idea. Their initial vision was to form such a group as a separate organization that would be affiliated with NHSM, a proposition that NHSM quickly rejected.  

Mr.Desautels subsequently pitched his idea to the Maryland Academy of Sciences, which then occupied quarters on the third floor of the Enoch Pratt Library.  Soon thereafter, he reappeared at NHSM and stated, “We’re going to be partners.” While no such partnership ever took place, Mr. Desautels was now in contact with enough mineral aficionados in the Baltimore area to assemble the kind of group he envisioned without the support of an outside organization.

The earliest meetings took place at Mr. Desautels’ Towson apartment.  John S. White(pictured at left), who was in high school at the time, recalls being one of the founding officers (Treasurer) along with Mr. Desautels, who was President,   and Mr. Levey, who later became President.  Whether or not the group was yet calling itself the Baltimore Minerals Society is unclear.  Whatever its name, Mr. Levey remembers that in short order, Mr. Desautels was producing  its newsletter with a mimeograph machine at the Teacher’s College.

Mr. Levey, Mr. White, and Mr. Kepper all remember that their meetings were monthly.  The group grew and soon made arrangements to hold its meetings in a classroom and/or in the College’s chemistry lab. Both Mr. Levey and Mr. White recall these early meetings as having been much like classes where Mr. Desautels was the instructor.  Learning about minerals and related fields was not simply encouraged, but required, and assignments were part of the agenda.

Via email, Dr. Jack Kepper, who now lives in Arizona, shared further early recollections pertinent to the Society’s evolution.

Paul Desautels taught us about crystallography, chemistry and was passionate about the preparation of micromounts.  Virtually all of the material initially was from his duplicates, but soon we began collecting on field trips. I recall visiting Phoenixville, Frostburg, and the trap quarries in Virginia.  We even went over as a group to Washington DC to the Washington Mineralogical Society.  I don't think we called ourselves the Baltimore Mineral Society – perhaps our group was just a precursor of the society.

On more than one occasion during those early years, Mr. Desautels arranged for well-known micromounters Neal Yedlin and Lou Perloff to visit in order to provide the group with first-rate access to the micromounting niche of mineral collecting.  After a day of working with micromounts, the entire group retired to the Penn Hotel, then a popular Towson restaurant, for a dinner where the emphasis was on fellowship.

After several such annual gatherings, what had by now become the Baltimore Mineral Society formally held its first annual international micromount symposium in 1956 at the College. Afterwards, the group continued to retire to the Penn Hotel, as the smaller group had done in the past.

The following year, 1957, Mr. Desautels left Maryland State Teachers College to become Curator of Minerals and Gems at the Smithsonian.  Future symposia moved to Stemmers Run Jr. High School in Eastern Baltimore County, where BMS member John Jedlicka was Principal. 

Mr. Desautels remained in his Curator-in-Charge position at the Smithsonian for 25 years. In 1963, he hired Mr. White, then a field geologist working for ASARCO in Tucson, to become a museum technician specializing in mineral sciences. While working at the Smithsonian, Mr. White founded  Mineralogical Record in 1970, and after a series of promotions to various curatorial positions, succeeded Mr. Desautels as Curator-in Charge of the Smithsonian’s Division of Mineralogy in 1984. 

In Middleburg, PA: The Other National Limestone Quarry

Less than ten miles away from the above pictured National Limestone Quarry in Middleburg, Pennsylvania,  is another National Limestone Quarry, which became well known about ten years ago after one of its more remote corners proved to be a source for  world-class wavellite specimens. Owned by the same family, the  Middleburg, PA,, National Limestone Quarry is by all appearances a similar kind of quarry, but it is low on the radar of mineral collectors. In fact, as best as we can determine, even  Mindat is unaware of its existence.

Through prior arrangements with the owner, members of the Baltimore Mineral Society and the Chesapeake Gem and Mineral Society received permission to collect at this "dark limestone" quarry in Middleburg on Saturday, April 11, 2015. We knew it had yielded  fluorite and that "cave flowers" had been found on the berms where  collecting was permitted,


We determined the fluorite to be easy to find in cubes  up to slightly more than an inch.It occurs in veins of dolomite within large boulders of dark limestone. To separate the fluorite cubes from the dolomite encasing them is problematic; likewise to separate the dolomite veins from the limestone through which they intrude. Many of the veins are no more than an inch wide. The preferred method for collecting the fluorite is  to  whack the large boulders with such veins using a large sledge hammer and trim away as much limestone as possible from the resulting particles

A higtlight of the day was an encounter with aragonite rubble  that  clearly originated in a cave that had collapsed on a surrounding wall. Unlike the clear to pale orangish brown aragonite stones present on many of the berms, some of this aragonite demonstrated  a presence of  stalactites, stalagmites, and "cave flowers,"  The seven inch stalactite at right proved to be one of the day's premier finds along with nodular stalagmic sections and some crumbly aragonite with vugs containing impressive microscopic orangish brown aragonite needles. Since nearly all caves or caverns in the region where such material exists are public places that prohibit collecting, this quarry provided a rare such opportunity, although  the picking were slim.



Other finds included magnificent dendrites, pictured at left. Also present, were colorless calcite crystals to about five millimeters  as seen at right  within vugs occurring in a very few limestone boulders. The only other material  of notable  interest to be uncovered were  mud crack rocks.

Even with permission to also collect at the nearby National Limestone Quarry in Mt. Pleasant Mills, the Middleburg locality sufficed to occupy our group for six hours. With  two hours of collecting time remaining, we headed to to the Mt. Pleasant Mills Quarry to a spot that yielded fine barrel-shaped calcite crystals.

Great Maryland Exhibits; Great Show

The Gem,Lapidary, and Mineral Society of Montgomery County's recent 51st annual show at the 4H building of the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in Gaithersburg raised what otherwise could be a tough question. Where else, and for that matter when, can one actually see first hand a wide range of different mineral species that were collected in Maryland?

The images above show a variety of Maryland species featured in an exhibit entitled Mines, Mineralogists, and Maryland. Each specimen is historically significant as determined by such criteria as locality, the person who collected it, and/or past ownership. Chris Luzier, the GLMSMC's president and enthusiastic curator of the display, has surrounded the specimens with images and memorabilia related to Maryland's mining history as well as to numerous renowned late mineralogists who collected, identified, and studied Maryland specimens.  The collection's previous owner was the prominent Maryland collector Fred Parker, who availed much of his Maryland collection  to GLMSMC before moving last year to New Mexico. Fred acquired the historic specimens from the well-known Collectors Edge mineral dealership, which in turn had acquired them when the Philadelphia Academy liquidated its hidden and neglected world-class mineral collection in 2007. Most of the specimens are from localities that no longer exist. It is unquestionably the ultimate historical display of Maryland Minerals

Pictured above is part of  an additional display of other Maryland collected minerals formerly part of the  Fred Parker Maryland collection. Therein are numerous species beyond those represented in the historic display. Many are from localities not included in the Mines, Mineralogists, and Maryland exhibit

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At last year's show, a specimen of Harford County radiated actinolite in steatite prompted our March 24, 2014 post entitled "Historic Maryland Epiphany." This year a specimen appearing similar to an unidentified Hunting Hill serpentine rock in this writer's collection inspired a second, albeit less convincing, epiphany.  It interested me to note that Mindat refers to metaxite as a "synonym for chrisotile," A closer look could be in order. 

Pictured at left is another particularly eye-catching exhibit featuring specimens from the Fairfax Quarry in Centreville, Virginia. They are from the collection of GLMSMC member Jonathan Ertman. Referred to in our November 7, 2009 post as "Maryland's Mr. Hunting Hill Garnet," Jon has focused much of his attention in recent years on acquiring the no longer to be collected classic apophyllite/prehnite specimens for which Centreville is famous. It could be a reasonable conjecture that serious collectors from the Maryland/DC/Virginia area  crave this mineral specimen genre more than any other, possibly even those gemmy Hunting Hill grossulars,

Beyond the aforementioned and about 40 more exhibits on the first floor were numerous workshops, related to lapidary work as well a features to attract the interest of youngsters.  Dealers completely filled the second floor. The GLMSMC sets up the building this way each year, and it works great.

Most of the dealers are from or have strong ties in the region. The range of their offerings is sufficient to interest just about every kind of collector.  Their busiest time is  during the first several hours the first day of the show when aficionados eager for a grab at first pickings all but mob them. Notwithstanding, the pace remains busy, and the wide gamut of dealer offerings continues throughout the two days of this wonderful show. It's not to be missed.

Contributing to Mindat: A Pleasure and an Honor

It should be safe to say that the gentleman pictured above has done more to enhance the science and hobby of mineralogy than anyone else in history. If you have enough interest in minerals to be reading this, you know that he is Jolyon Ralph, who 14 years ago founded Mindat.org,  the world's largest and most complete public information database about minerals. The site makes it a no-brainer to access and cross-reference whatever you need to know about a  mineral species, from  pertinent facts to localities to hundreds of thousands of images.

 The majority of collectors, dealers, academics, and others with an interest in minerals could not do what they do as well---if at all---without Mindat.org. Most important, access is free to everyone and will continue to be so.

With volunteer input from some of the best mineralogical minds on the planet, Jolyon  created Mindat.org in his spare time as a hobby. Only in the last year did he quit his day job in London, England in order to fulfil the the demands on his time to run it.

As Mindat.org is based in Great Britain,  Jolyon is moving  forward to establish a nonprofit as a US-based 501(c)(3) organization that will make it feasible to secure funds to  continue growing while keeping its database and website  available at no cost.  Until recently, this money came from Jolyon's pocket. To see how Mindat.org will spend the $250,000  it is seeking, follow this link.

One should consider it an honor to contribute to Mindat.org. To encourage early contributions, sponsorships are available at $50 a page for the vast majority of the approximately 4600 mineral species known to exist. This writer, as a Marylander, is flattered to have his name pop up whenever anyone accesses the page for chromite  and williamsite. And for a donation of $1,000 or more you can become named as a Fellow of Mindat.org on the front page of the site.

An Historic and Obscure Zeolite Occurrence at Monkton, Maryland

Pictured above is an historic specimen displaying numerous microscopic chabazite and heulandite crystals at a contact point on a slab of Baltimore gneiss. Pursuant to the labels, it was collected at Little Falls near Monkton in Baltimore County, Maryland. The orignial label is from from the collection--- or dealership--- of Germany's late Dr. August Krantz (1809-1872) and identifies the featured species to be haydenite and beaumontite, as chabazite and heulandite  respectively were referred to at the time. The specimen was later in the collection of Jeff Weissman, a renowned mineral photographer and rare species expert.
I acqurired it from John Betts with labels that go well beyond the call of duty to document the provenance. Though  not noted on the label, John also expressed a belief that the specimen could very likely have been collected from excavations near Monkton for the Northern Central Railroad line during the 1830's.


After ceasing operations in 1972, the former NCR rail line was converted into a popular rail/trail in 1984. It  is known today as the Torrey C. Brown Trail and crosses Little Falls about 1.7 miles north of Monkton just before it flows into the Gunpowder River  The Baltimore gneiss in which the chabazite and heulandite are present is indigenous to this specific area. It is more prevalent, however, farther south in Baltimore City and was quarried there extensively in the 19th century for building stone. Interestingly, the chabazite and heulandite appear on the gneiss in a manner that is visually similar to known historic specimens collected  at the Jones Falls Quarries. Some of these can be viewed on  Mindat.

Such historic specimens from Maryland localities of which no remnants still exist can be fascinating to those with interest in the regional mineralogy. For certain, we have much to learn from them. On the other hand, the localities attributed to them can become misleading when the names by which their localies were once known change and become forgotten or confused.

With this specimen, however, the documentation is sufficient to suggest that it is everything the labels claim. To the best of our knowledge, it could well be the only currently known occurrence of these two zeolite species to be reported from the Baltimore Gneiss in Baltimore County (as opposed to the City of Baltimore) or for that matter the only chabazite and/or heulandite specimens to be reported from anywhere in Baltimore County.

Unbelievable but True: The World Class Personal Collection of Peter Via

This post is about a world class mineral collection and its collector, Peter Via, of Roanoke, Virginia.. While passing through this increasingly vital city three years ago, I visited Mr. Via and viewed his assemblage of minerals, It was overwhelming to the point that the amount of time we had scheduled for me to view it was far from sufficient.

Three years later, the opportunity arose for me to visit again.  Due to unforeseen circumstances, limited time once again became an issue. With several hundred specimens on display, my mission was to photograph as many as possible and also try to learn what I could about Mr. Via's approach to putting together such a collection.

The minerals fill intricately crafted modern wooden cabinets in which custom halogen lighting showcases each one. Magnificent as they were to view, photographing them proved challenging enough  that only about twenty of approximately one hundred hurriedly shot images proved pleasing. Despite the superb lighting, good images of such specimens are best captured by removing each piece individually to a studio setting  in order to avoid reflections from nearby minerals as well as interference from the intersection of well-finished wood and the  thick glass upon which the specimens rest. An alternative technique of maneuvering  the camera within an open cabinet might produce a few more decent images, but could easily lead to the disaster of knocking over and damaging treasures of untold value.

Such risk is why, when asked to loan specimens for display at shows,  Mr. Via's  response  is a "blanket no," All the minerals from his collection that are available for the public to to view are those he has generously gifted to museums, primarily James Madison University Mineral Museum in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
                 
Peter Via himself is no more likely to be present at shows than the minerals in his collection. "If I went,"he once told The Robb Report, "I'd come back with my entire net worth in the back of an 18-wheeler"The reality is that when Mr.Via acquires a mineral, the provider of it hand delivers the specimen to his home. He is willing to pay top dollar,  but notes:  "It's like the stock market. You've got to know what you're doing."  Unlike many high-end collectors, however, he does not view the minerals in his collection as investments.

Instead, Mr Via chooses his minerals pursuant to a personal sensibility cultivated by serious collecting over the better part of a century. He is well aware of how prices for the kind of minerals he slowly accumulates have consistently risen over time and believes with a sense of knowing that they will continue to do so.

When viewing these specimens, one is likely to wonder about the possibility that they could be the most desirable of their genre or "best of species" known to exist. When asked about this, he responds: " I can't say I know. No one ever knows what's out there sitting in someones closet."

Like all collectors, Mr. Via will occasionally sell a specimen or two. "Sometimes when they come here to sell me minerals," he explains, "I'll want to get something out for the sake of space. I'm happy to let it go for any reasonable amount I can get, but I'm not about to lose money." He made clear, however, that he has no plans ever to sell his collection.

A Privileged Visit to the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum

 The shows that were happening in Denver over the weekend of September 12-14  at that city's Merchandise Mart, Ramada Plaza Hotel, and the Denver Coliseum  were great. The only regret I had was that my ten Colorado-booked days spanned the week following these shows rather than the previous week. As a result, I missed  the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum's open house in nearby Golden on September 10.

 Headquartered in its present modern building at 1310 Maple Street since 2003, and featuring two floors of superb exhibits relating to Colorado's legendary mineral heritage, the museum was founded in 1874. Its star has been rising ever since---more than ever in recent years.

Having never had the opportunity for a visit,  I made a point of detouring to Golden after the Denver shows were over.  While the Museum's exhibits run  the  gamut of earth sciences, cabinets full of minerals predominate, especially on the main (top) floor. They are arranged mostly according to locality, with separate cabinets devoted to  minerals from Arizona, Mexico, Europe, China, South America, and various other locations. Minerals collected in Colorado fill the greatest amount of space, with separate exhibits devoted to counties and districts of Colorado's mineral belt. Included are the Aspen District, San Miguel, Ouray,  Boulder County, Gilpin County, the Leadville District, Clear Creek County, the Gilman District, the Creede District, Teller County and Cripple Creek. In addition to separate exhibits of  gemstones and pseudomorphs, I was delighted to also find an exhibit proclaiming the pleasures and merits of micromounting.


After an hour or more of browsing and ogling, I recognized through an open office door Dr. Bruce Geller, who has been the museum's Director since 2007. My timing for looking in to introduce myself and say hello could not have been more auspicious. With two collection managers, 16 student aides,  75 volunteers, and three additional buildings to oversee, Dr. Geller is also  responsible for the coordination of nearly daily guided public tours, mostly for tourists and students. As luck would have it, the next guided tour was to be for Yours Truly alone.

"Twenty percent of everything  moves out  each year in order to make room for fresh displays," Dr. Geller informs me as we walk from his office into the main floor exhibit hall. One such new display is the case to which he points in the image at left. It features gold from Central City, which is where the Colorado Gold Rush began in 1859.  Included in this case are magnificent native gold specimens believed to be the earliest known to exist from the region. Also in the case were two gold coins minted with Central City Gold in 1860 and 1861 by the privately owned mint and banking company Gruber and Clark. "We always try to do Colorado," he says. "That's our mission."

We next enter a side room that Martin Zinn  recently donated to honor his mother. Mr. Zinn is well known for his role as   manager of extravaganzas that include the Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show each February in Tucson, the recent Colorado Mineral and Fossil show, the East Coast Gem  Mineral and Fossil Show, and two major West Coast shows. The room features cabinets housing numerous specimens from the Zinn family mineral collection, as well as a cabinet of specimens provided by the  renowned mineral dealer David Bunk.
Pictured above and particularly impressive is a cabinet  filled with an extensive, diverse, and downright amazing rhodochrosite suite on loan from Dennis Streetman.

      Dr. Geller's enthusiasm continues as we walk around the larger hall, where he points out specimens he believes worthy of being considered "best of species". The pyragryite piece from the Parano mine at Fresnillo in Zacatecas, Mexico, pictured at left, speaks for one such specimen. Another, shown at right, features an enormous columbite crystal in albite from  Minas Gerais, Brazil, Viewed live, its grandeur appears all but unbelievable. To the best of Dr. Geller's knowledge, it is "the biggest columbite crystal in the world." Both specimens, as well as numerous others that are clearly world class were donated  by Oreck Corporation founder David Oreck and his son Bruce.

 Taking  a phone call, Dr. Geller refers me to Richard Parsons, one of the 75 volunteers active with the Museum.Mr. Parsons, like Dr. Geller, is an avid micromounter. Within a minute, Mr. Parsons is leading me down a flight of stairs. The room to which they lead houses  the Museum's primary earth science exhibits relating to paleontology, meteorites, and mining, Colorado's premier display of fluorescent minerals, and the gift shop, Through an inconspicuous door, we pass into a large area used by the museum for storage and study. At the forefront, are numerous cabinets such as the one next to which Mr Parsons is pictured at right. They house the world class micromount collections assembled by the late and famous mineralogist Lazard Cahn, as well as those assembled by Arnold Hampson and Dorothy Atlee. In all, these three collections include more than 15,000 micromounts.

As we  return upstairs, Dr. Geller is once again available and proceeds to further enhance my awareness of  what the Museum is about. He begins by pointing out its most recent coup. It is a mural consisting of six paintings showcasing the history of mining from Paleolithic times through the 1930's. The paintings  extend a short distance out from the west wall  about two feet below the ceiling. Irwin Hoffman painted them for the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco. Thereafter they graced Colorado School of Mines Berhoud Hall and later the National Mining Hall of Fame before being transferred here when the Geology Museum  moved into its present quarters. Damaged by water that seeped in during a severe 2013 rain storm, Dr. Geller employed the services of restorers, framers and other artisans to have the mural up in time for the Museum's  September 10  open house.

Later he mentions that  the Museum maintains four warehouses. One is the large storage and study area adjoining the first floor where Richard Parsons showed me the micromounts. The other three have separate locations. They include a second warehouse filled with rocks and minerals. A third warehouse is for fossils, The fourth warehouse holds radioactive material and is "so hot," he says, "I've only been in there twice."

As the afternoon winds toward an end, Dr. Geller speaks of a practice that differentiates the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum from many other museums. It does not allow all the material that goes into its warehouses become lost or forgotten.

Dr. Geller explains:

On Average, we receive roughly one worthy donation per day, which creates a challenge for our Collections Managers, who must discriminate what is essential from what is superfluous. We are fortunate for the donations of earth science materials and rarely turn them down. We have several options for the overflow: our Gift Shop, our campus labs/classrooms, our give away box at the museum entrance, and one or two annual Garage Sales of generally low-end unlabeled material.

STUMPED! on a Rock from Baltimore's Stony Run

Many of us  collectors have rocks lying around  that we are unable to identify even when we know their locality. Ultimately, if determined enough, we figure it out. Often we find someone who can tell us, or we encounter a similar rock that's been identified. To date, no such answer has surfaced regarding the most definitive aspect of the rock pictured above.  Baltimore artist Rick Shelley---I was collecting with him at the time---pulled it  from the stream bed of Stony Run a short distance south of the Remington Avenue Bridge.

This is a section of the stream where mica schist, quartzite and quartz account for most of what is around. The latter two often bear stains of iron oxide. A few cobbles, when cracked open, show vugs bearing weathered hematite and/or goethite.  Less frequently, one might find a rock similar to this one where the quartzite bears a coating of drusy quartz that's become variably smoothed since entering the stream, The drusy quartz may or may not be botryoidal, as it is with this specimen

What everyone who  has seen this rock finds to be curious are the concentric circles. A likely conclusion could be that they are fossils, or fossil imprints. Although it's possible, even with with a matrix of quartz or quartzite, such an occurrence would seem highly unlikely at this location in the eastern section of Maryland's Piedmont.

Much if not most of the approximately one square mile of land surrounding where Mr. Shelley found this rock was once the site of various  filled in and built over gneiss quarries that yielded a diversity of interesting mineral species. These quarries and their minerals were the subject of numerous classical mineralogical reports. We are not aware of any literature noting the existence of  fossils in the area.
 
Very recently, we showed this rock to my friend John S. White, who having been Curato-in Charge of the Smithsonian's Division of Mineralogy for nearly eight years, could be the source of a credible opinion. After checking it out under the scope, he was as mystified as everyone else who has seen the specimen regarding its circles. His one firm opinion was to rule out the likelihood of a fossil.  His reasoning was as follows:

• I didn't see any organic looking surfaces.
• While there are a couple of prominent concentric circles, there are plenty of circles  that are quite irregular.
• There does  not appear to be any evidence of a sedimentary environment. 

What, then, expllains these circles?  We're hoping that someone will submit an answer about which he/she feels confident. 

The Mineralogical Legacy of Baltimorean Robert Gilmor

The important collection described below is the subject of a document excerpt  recently transmitted to me by John S. White, past Curator-in Charge of   the Smithsonian's Division of Mineralogy. He received it from Dr. Johan Kjellman, curator of the mineral collection at Uppsala University, Sweden. Dr. Kjellman had been researching crystal models and was interested in those that Albert Hauy had originally intended  for presentation to the Emperor of Austria. The excerpt below is  from The American Journal of Science and Arts, Second Series, Volume 6, November, 1848. In the note to which it was attached, Mr. White stated:  "Turns out that the old gentleman was Robert Gilmor (1774-1848) who, interestingly enough, was a Baltimorean. "

It did not take long for me to determine that in 1814, Mr. Gilmor published "A descriptive catalog of minerals occurring in the vicinity of Baltimore"  in  Bruce's American Mineralogical Journal, Vol.1, 1813, pp. 221-223. Therein he enumerated 43 different minerals found within a 14 mile radius of the city. Although Google had digitized this publication, the pertinent pages were missing from those that appeared on line. 

A Friday afternoon visit to Johns Hopkins University's Milton Eisenhower Library revealed that the publication we were seeking was available there on microfilm. The librarians were kind enough to locate it for me over the weekend, and by Monday copies were in my email. 

Here are some  items that proved to be of particular interest:

• "Native Magnesia:" From Bare Hills, obviously this is magnesite. "Is it not a carbonate of lime combined with magnesia?" Mr. Gilmor pondered. Even today, massive magnesite is quite common throughout the Bare Hills serpentine barrens. However, for it to be in crystals "accuminating to a dihedral summit---insulated, pure white and (or) transparent,"  is unheard of. 
• Corundum:  "An hexahedral crystal an inch in diameter was also found at Bare Hills, which in all its external characters corresponds with corundum, as described by Hauy; but the writer considers it doubtful"  Since then, corundum has been reported where pegmatite injects serpentine in other parts of Maryland. As a pegmatite dike adjoins the serpentine at the northern extreme of Bare Hills, the possibility of a corundum find seems realistic.
• "Staruotide is found in hexiahedral prisms with dihedral summits on the Falls Turnpike, 7 1/2 miles from Baltimore." This could be the same material  as collected by Bob Simonoff and very kindly confirmed for us as staurolite by Professor Emeritus Peter Leavans at the University of Delaware. It was the subject of our July, 2011 post 
• "Disthene:"--"or Cyanite, (lamellar) of a pale green (rarely blue) is found in a micaceous rock about 20 miles from town on the Falls turnpike, at Scotts Mill, 7 miles from the York Turnpike. The crystals are large and small, many of them 4 and 5 inches in length."
• Galena: "Found in a small vein in quarries about the first Falls Turnpike gate on the west side of Jones' Falls, accompanied by black lead ore and blende of sulphuret of zinc.  It is also asserted to be lately found in a large vein within 7 miles of the city, but the direction is kept a secret. The specimen seen by the wriiter, and said to come from the spot, was a large mass of galena." 

We have posted the document on our Maryland Minerals web site .  

Meanwhile, we have just received word from John White that Wendell Wilson, Publisher and Editor in Chief of Mineralogical Record, (which Mr. White founded in 1970) is interested in putting together an article about Mr. Gilmor, especially if he can come up with at least a couple of photographs of minerals bearing his label. Mr. Wilson's research suggests a possibility that perhaps one or two significant specimens once owned by Mr. Gilmor that were not included in the collection being sold in 1848 could have remained in Maryland. We are currently investigating that possibility. While the likelihood of locating these specimens is remote, our efforts could open new windows on mineral specimens collected in and/or housed in Maryland. 

Beware those Rare Franklin, NJ Micromounts

Dick Bostwick (left) and Van King (right) examining tethered photomicromgraphs. 

In Tucson, this past February, in a very well-received  presentation at the annual Friday Micromount Symposium,  Vandall T. (Van) King warned his audience of the strong likelihood that many of the myriad rare microminerals from Franklin and Sterling Hill, New Jersey were not what their labels proclaimed them to be.  As the owner of a small suite including several specimens alleged to be among the rarest of these species, the topic was of particular interest to me. If three specimens in that suite, namely jarosewichite, flinkite, and cahnite were correctly identified, I could be holding what to some very passionate Franklin aficionados would be submillimeter treasure no  larger than the head of a pin.

In fact, subjecting these specimens to the surest means of identification, namely scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and/or x-ray diffraction (XRD) would be to sacrifice them. Some kind of visual confirmation from a sufficiently knowledgeable expert was the best I could hope for. Upon learning that Van, who is currently busy at work authoring and compiling images for a photographic atlas of  the Franklin area's rare minerals, would be shooting photomicrographs the coming weekend  at the New York/New Jersey Gem and Mneral Show in Edison, NJ, I committed myself to be there. He said to look for him at the table hosted by the Franklin/Ogdensburg Mineral Society and the North Jersey Mineralogical Society.

Bearing the mounts proclaiming jarosewichite, cahnite, and flinkite, as well as several other pieces that seemed questionable,  namely  manganoberzeliite, antlerite, and Mg chlorophoenicite, it didn't take me long to find him.  Equipped with scope, camera and computer for shooting tethered stacked  photomicrographs to about 130x, he was  in the company of  Dick Bostwick and other heralded experts on Franklin minerals. They were all eager to provide input, albeit tentative in some instances, as to the identification of my specimens. At first, I was cautiously optimistic when they quickly recognized from their that my mounts were once in the collection of a deceased, but well-remembered and respected collector and photographer --prior to the digital age---of rare Franklin material.

Here is what I learned:

Dick Bostwick peered through the scope at this specimen, labeled as manganberzeliite and proclaimed that the identification could very well be accurate.

Van then did the same with this specimen, which was labeled as chlorophoenicite from Sterling Hill. He was unable to find any evidence of that species.

Soon thereafter, he checked out this piece, labeled as schallerite. His opinion was that rather than schallerite,  it was probably friedelite.

With my "antlerite," the verdict was warmer. Though not an inordinately rare species, antlerite  is said to be very rare at Franklin. Its  submillimeter presence had led me to believe that any conclusive visual identification would be unlikely. Van informed me that the specimen did look like antlerite.*

At left is the specimen about which everyone was  most curious. Though no more than a millimeter in length, its label  noted those three most extreme  rarities: jarosewichite (believed to be the reddish orange  balls), flinkite (the darker material with a brownish cast), and cahnite (the white material). While unable to identify any flinkite, Van took an interest in this specimen, and spent quite a bit of time studying  that reddish orange ball. He concluded that it was caryopilite, an uncommon member of the serpentine group. As for the white "cahnite?" It could be cahnite," he said.  But how could we really tell?

For his atlas, Van, of course,  was focusing on specimens that were confirmed through analysis by SEM and/or XRD. Needless to say, at least to the best of anyone's knowledge, none of my specimens were ever confirmed, For that matter, very few of the rare micromounts in circulation have ever been so confirmed. Of course, with most rare microminerals, a well-informed visual identification is usually sufficent. However, with many of the extreme microscopic rarities, especially  from Franklin/Sterling Hill, it's Caveat Emptor. 

*Prior to publication, I transmitted to Van a draft of this post for an accuracy check. His response included the following quote: 

By the way, we just learned from Lance Kearns that the Sterling Mine "antlerite" we sent for verification is gypsum colored by malachite. Your specimen does look what people have been passing around as antlerite. I would add, in retrospect, I don't know of a valid "antlerite" in private hands if the tested specimen was only gypsum.  The FrOgs (sic Franklin - Ogdenburg mineral aficionados)  will be chirping for a while over the results that just came in.