Tucson 2009

Report by Jolyon Ralph

First, wrapping up some of the interesting things I saw at the Hotel Shows:

Russian Minerals in the Quality Inn show had slices of Clinochlore or "Seraphinite" from Russia, as many of the russian dealers did, however they also had what they claimed is the last complete stalactite in existence of the material, so here's a photo:



Now let's wander over to the Inn Suites show...



This is one of my favourite shows, mostly because it's a relaxed venue where most of my friends and contacts from the mineral world appear with regularity, so hanging around in the center of the Inn Suites during show days means you're guaranteed to meet up with a bunch of people you know (and quite a few new people too).

Alfredo Petrov had his usual room at the Inn Suites, and one thing he had that I thought you'd like to see was this fake cuprian Aragonite from Spain. Made in the same way as the copper-stained glauberite specimens you've no doubt seen from the US.



Jordi Fabre had a few new things to show me, including this Vesuvianite from China - as blocky prismatic crystals



and this rich Shigaite from the Wessels Mine, South Africa

Air Mindat

Those of you looking for me at the main show on Friday morning will have figured out I was missing - that's because I was out collecting - and what better way to go collecting than to go to two virtually inaccessable sites by helicopter in one day.

A few of us from the Mindat Chatroom clubbed together to organize this (and if you've never been in the mindat chatroom now you know what you're missing!). Here we are loading up Air Mindat flight 001 for our day's collecting:



Here's Jim Bean sitting in the helicopter looking very excited:



And me looking quite excited too! Now you see the lengths I'll go to for mindat.org research!



En-route we flew over the Air Force 'boneyard' I mentioned in my previous report. This was a much better view than the coach tour I paid for!



Our first stop was the Grand Reef Mine, famed for Linarite in particular:



Here's a view of the Reef itself, and the collecting area in the scree to the left:




We all did pretty well there, but Mike Rumsey did especially well with his haul of Linarite:



Here's a view of one of the pieces he found



After this, it was back in the helicopter en-route for our next stop. We flew over some beautiful and totally deserted parts of Arizona:



Our next stop was the Table Mountain Mine, famed for Dioptase, The helicopter landed on a remarkable small strip of land - which proved to be the slag pile from the smelters! Here we are looking over the drop next to where the helicopter is parked.



Mike Rumsey wasted no time in building a snowman - he thought it was hillarious that he could build one in Southern Arizona.



And then onto the serious business of looking for Dioptase in the dumps. Here's Mike again exploring, but Jim found the best piece, sharp dioptase crystals in a quartz cavity.



A last photo-call before our return flight. From Left to Right - Roy "Digger" Lee, Me (Jolyon Ralph), Maria Alferova, Mike "Rumz" Rumsey, Everett "E" Harrington, Jim "Jim-CA" Bean



And finally, on our way back to Tucson Airport, we flew over the Inn Suites - so here's a view of the Inn Suites Show that you don't usually get to see!



And yes, we will be going back next year!

Part 3 - The TGMS show, coming soon!

---

In order to leave comments to this article, you must be registered