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Fred A. Schuster's Blog
The trip to the Roseville Iron Mine
18th Jul 2010
I visited the Roseville iron Mine with David Bernstein who was so kind as to show me one of his locations. I was raised in Northern NJ but am now living in Quebec Canada. I am glad to have met someone who can guide me to locations in my old home state, when I get a chance to visit my family there.
Here is Dave Bernstein holding a piece of rock containing a vein of garnet
When I was a boy I visited the Andover Iron mines often, which are only a few miles north of the Roseville Mine. I notice that the mineral parageneses are similar. Most of the over 200 iron mines in north New Jersey are not too interesting. Or perhaps not well studied. Here the Andover mines and the Roseville mines are in the same strike and seem to be in rock formations related to the Franklin Marble belt. Andover mines also had andradite garnet occuring with pyroxenes and sulfides. Also there was red hematite found there.
I concentrated on looking for the garnet hoping to find some nice crystals. I took back pieces with veins of calcite and garnet in black pyroxene and later disolved them in muriatic acid. The crystals where there but not as euhedral as I hoped. Some crystals seemed to be hollow.
Here I found the garnet associated with epidote. I assume it may be andradite due to the similar environments
In a close up you can see some of the garnet crystals seem hollow.
This mine is interesting due to the calcite and calcium present which is not so evident in other magnetite mines in north NJ.
Also we found and example of asbestos which looks a lot like chrysotile, which I see a lot of since I am living in Thetford Mines Quebec, a Chysotile asbestor mining town.
Here is a piece of asbestos from the Roseville Mine.
Here is Dave Bernstein holding a piece of rock containing a vein of garnet
When I was a boy I visited the Andover Iron mines often, which are only a few miles north of the Roseville Mine. I notice that the mineral parageneses are similar. Most of the over 200 iron mines in north New Jersey are not too interesting. Or perhaps not well studied. Here the Andover mines and the Roseville mines are in the same strike and seem to be in rock formations related to the Franklin Marble belt. Andover mines also had andradite garnet occuring with pyroxenes and sulfides. Also there was red hematite found there.
I concentrated on looking for the garnet hoping to find some nice crystals. I took back pieces with veins of calcite and garnet in black pyroxene and later disolved them in muriatic acid. The crystals where there but not as euhedral as I hoped. Some crystals seemed to be hollow.
Here I found the garnet associated with epidote. I assume it may be andradite due to the similar environments
In a close up you can see some of the garnet crystals seem hollow.
This mine is interesting due to the calcite and calcium present which is not so evident in other magnetite mines in north NJ.
Also we found and example of asbestos which looks a lot like chrysotile, which I see a lot of since I am living in Thetford Mines Quebec, a Chysotile asbestor mining town.
Here is a piece of asbestos from the Roseville Mine.
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Gary Moldovany
19th Jul 2010 11:49pm