Went to A/S Granite today, and what a day it became!

I started to check out some large blocks of larvikite at level 4, found some cavities with natrolite on analcime and feldspar. On a few of them there were groups of bright yellow calcite scalenohedrons. Back home under the scope I also found some odd shaped pyrite crystals and pale green chlorite, probably amesite.

I continued upwards to level 1, where I picked up a nice sample with micro zircons last time I visited Tuften. Now all the ice where gone so finally it was possible to see the rocks properly.

I started looking through some material containing what probably is an ancylite group member, lots of pink massive stuff. Also in same material was a lot of alteration material I have to study further, also present was Fe/Mn/Ti(?) oxides, galena, arsenopyrite, thorite and hambergite. The presence of hambergite made the blood pump going a little faster. Further search did reveal a lot of interesting material, and even some really good samples. First that went into the rucksack was a pretty large sample with rich covering of chiavennite on one side. Then a chunk of feldspar with a hole and some white balls showed up. I need to get it studied with larger magnification, but it’s either epididymite or eudidymite. Then another hole appeared and inside that there was a very interesting aggregate of crystals. Back home I could easily see it was eudidymite covered with a second generation of crystals. Further searching in the same area I found some really interesting massive carbonate mineral – pink! I cross my fingers and hope Alf Olav Larsen might want to check it out in his lab, and that a result would be rhodocrosite. What make this carbonate extra interesting is that it hides nicely terminated colorless hambergite micro crystals.



You can imagine that my rucksack was heavy to carry back to the car today. There was hardly any space left for any other samples. Now I have hours and days of interesting work to trim and check all the material. This was for sure the last trip to Tvedalen this year, but I think I’ll be out collecting pretty early in the new year – and it looks promising!

I wish you all a just as promising and good New Year!

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